"The Elusive E-book" and the elephant in the room

Throughout this debate I have been waiting for someone to stumble on the 
elephant in the room -- Joseph is getting close here. Unfortunately most 
of the members seem to suffer an understandable blindness, possibly 
related to the inability of men to see dirt in a room they've been asked 
to tidy up. The real completion is not between print books and eBooks -- 
this is a minor and increasingly irrelevant sideshow. The competition is 
between free reading matter and paid reading matter.

The Web with all its sites and blogs is essentially a huge free library. 
Your monthly broadband internet connection typically pays for itself in 
a day or two of work-related use. The remaining 28 days are free. Blogs, 
news sites, PDF documents, etc, etc, etc... all of us without exception 
spend far more time reading online than we did a year ago, and we don't 
even notice it. People are not reading less -- they are reading much 
more: they're just not paying for it. In a few years the notion of 
paying for everyday reading matter -- like newspapers and magazines -- 
will seem quaint and bizarre; only the most outstanding material will be 
able to compete with what's already up for free.

Subscription models and clever marketing may delay the final outcome a 
little, but in the absence of draconian controls, everything worth 
reading is going to make its way on to the Web sooner rather than later, 
because it will be the means by which things are read. This is the 'open 
source' -- billions of web pages, millions of blogs, news reports, 
out-of-copyright books and stories, poetry, spoken word, music and video.

BUY a book/eBook? Come on, get real!

Jon.
> C'mon, where's open source when you need it?
>
> Joseph Harris 
>
>   

------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/