What about a system where you can download an e-book for free, read it for a month or so with the option of rolling-over that term for another month -- as long as someone else hasn't requested it? In short, where are libraries going to be in this?
If you apply that principal to e-books, which cost almost nothing to copy, and therefore don't reasonably need to be checked out or returned, you have to remove all DRM, thus destroying the e-book business model.
Unfortunately, librarians have bought into the DRM mindset, and are putting into place (or planning to put into place) systems like the one you describe.
In my opinion, if a business model requires there to be no public libraries or a substantially reduced public library, then so much the worse for the business model. There needs to be an analogue between the world where books are things made of paper and the world where books are made of bits.