
Are paper books really disappearing? - sergeant3
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160124-are-paper-books-really-disappearing
======
hosay123
Paper books for me are a universally superior product, they require no
battery, don't feature update popups, wifi conncetions, eInk artifacts on page
turns, accidental touchscreen events, inflexibility preventing storage in an
inside jacket pocket, ...

I could go on.

And despite all that, they're priced as if they're in some way equivalent to
the real deal. I've tried and failed to make the jump via Kindle and Kobo, and
until such times as pricing on the major stores reflects the eBook's status as
an inferior, vastly cheaper to produce knockoff of the real deal, I won't be
tempted to buy any more ebooks (the price difference should be closer to 50%,
not 15%)

Another aspect as an IT guy is that my ability to relax and focus when holding
a _computer_ is vastly reduced over a paper book. The limitations of paper
books in that sense are actually a feature. I can't search, bookmark (without
folding a paper page corner), 'browse', play with some half-baked eInk web
browser, switch book etc., all of which are real focus problems I suffer from.

~~~
pakled_engineer
I also like the "airgap" benefits of books vs proprietary readers, nobody can
log into a book and ninja edit for future political reasons or delete them for
copyright reasons.

~~~
drunken-serval
Personally, I'm not this paranoid. I buy the books on my kindle and copy them
into Calibre and strip the DRM. I get all the benefits of having an permanent
archive and being able to enjoy modern technology.

~~~
pakled_engineer
For now we can strip DRM, what if all near future readers have a TPM-like
hardware key that can't be copied or sniffed that must be present to decrypt
the text.

------
bane
As much as I like paper books in theory (I have an entire room in my house
dedicated to being a library), I found I haven't actually really read one in a
few years. Kindles, Tablets and the like are more convenient for linear
reading (novels, etc.). For my last couple vacations, where I do lots of
reading, I just brought my tablet and kindle along, where I would have brought
a couple of books in the past. Bonus, they do other things that books don't
do.

Downside is all the obvious, needs batteries, charging, etc.

However, for non-linear reading (e.g. reference books), paper books can't be
beat yet. But funny thing, I bought some reference books for one of my teams
recently and had to teach a couple of them how to use an index because they
had only learned to ctrl+f to find things. I'll admit that well organized
hypertext reference guides work _almost_ as well as a reference book, but you
consume screen space trying to display the information while an open book on
your desk automatically provides that "screen" space.

On the flip side, I can start reading a book on my tablet, move to my computer
and then my phone all in the same day and modern reading apps keep everything
synced pretty well.

I feel sad sometimes because my physical library hasn't grown much, but then I
remember that I've read many times the number of books on my digital devices
because they're so convenient.

I don't like e-reader software and the way the information is displayed. I've
found that the full-page image scans of books is more beautiful in many cases
and works wonderfully on modern tablets with high resolution displays. There's
an entire library of these scans over at archive.org for those interested, in
many genres.

~~~
CWuestefeld
My experience is much like yours: linear reading is much superior on an
e-device. But for technical stuff, I haven't found a reader device that gives
me a good substitute for having multiple books open on my desk, with marked
pages so I can flip between multiple locations.

One other thing that bugs me about e-readers is that they intentionally carry
all the disadvantages of chopping text into discrete pages, when there's no
reason at all to do so. In particular, it bugs me that, at the bottom of a
page, I've got to memorize the context before flipping to the next. As I say
it, it seems more jarring than it is, but even so, it's forcing a
discontinuity that can interrupt the flow.

I just can't fathom why they don't do something to avoid that jump. Back in
the early days of e-readers, I used software called "iSilo" on Palm and later
PocketPC. This allowed me to configure it such that scrolling was in chunks of
half a page. With this I could find any convenient spot (a paragraph or at
least sentence break) on the lower half of the page, and choose to flip there.
My previous "cursor" point would shift half way up the screen, and I could
continue fluidly from there. I really wish Kindle allowed this.

~~~
bane
I keep feeling like e-book readers need a "grab a bunch of a pages and flip
them all" gesture along with the single page flip. When I flip a chunk of
pages in a physical book all at once, I slide my index finger down some
percentage of the remaining pages and just flip that entire section of book.
Some kind of reasonable and intuitive two-finger equivalent seems like it
would help with making e-books work better on digital devices.

------
Finnucane
I work in ebook production for an academic publisher, and I think at least
part of the reason sales have flattened is technological. The current crop of
ebook readers are optimized for mass-market books, and have little or no
support for complex text or layouts. My life would certainly be easier if I
could rely on the Kindle to properly display math or tables, but I can't.
Apple iBooks is a little better in this regard, also the newer Kobos, but not
yet a big market for us. The money, for them, is in disposable genre books, so
they have little incentive to do much software development (hell, some days
I'd settle for just consistent behavior across product lines...)

~~~
creshal
> My life would certainly be easier if I could rely on the Kindle to properly
> display math or tables, but I can't.

From a pure consumer point of view, I'd already be glad if I had consistent,
working footnotes in my Kindle books. Somehow, every ebook does them
differently, and exactly zero make them convenient enough to bother with them.

Even the one or two foot notes per page in Discworld books are a chore to
handle, non-fiction books with 5+ are impossible – and I only read those for
leisure. At work I'd never even consider using ebook formats. I'd honestly
prefer PDFs. At least their reader ecosystem isn't _quite_ as dysfunctional…

~~~
Finnucane
A 'footnote' at the bottom of the page doesn't work when there's no bottom of
a page. Our books normally have endnotes, which can be linked to a numbered
callout (I've even written a little QA script to make sure all the notes are
correctly linked). With traditional footnotes that have a separate number
sequence for each page, that has to be resequenced and it is a chore. Some
publishers are lazy about that stuff. (We have authors who insist on having
both footnotes and endnotes, and I curse them).

~~~
creshal
End notes work… if the software can return back to where I came from. The
Kindle can't. So I have to memorize my page number before tapping an end note.
That's assuming I _know_ the book uses end notes, which I can't without
testing – some books use pop-up footnotes instead (which obscure half the
screen, including the referencing text).

In both cases, the Kindle loves to insist that I tap _exactly_ the 5pt big
footnote number itself (around the size of a fleck of dust) and will happily
ignore any taps missing it (and just flip to the next page instead… or
previous, who cares? Not Amazon).

All that, of course, is assuming I use a newer one with touch screen.
Otherwise, I'll have to muck around with the arrow keys.

~~~
Finnucane
"End notes work… if the software can return back to where I came from. The
Kindle can't."

The kindle can, if the links exist. If they don't, it's the publisher's fault.

~~~
creshal
Seems that in my 100+ books, no publisher could be bothered.

Oh, well. Time to get another bookshelf…

------
moggie
This struck me as odd:

 _“For my grandchildren, the idea that reading is something you do by yourself
will seem arcane,” he says. “Why would you want to read by yourself if you can
have access to the ideas of others you know and trust, or to the insights of
people from all over the world?”_

Though what's authored in a book might not be from anyone we know and trust
(in itself not a "bad" thing) it's quite likely still a body of (possibly
collective) insight already—perhaps even from someone(s) in less-local parts
of the world.

Maybe I missed the point, but it felt like the quote was missing that a book
is already a view into others' ideas and insights.

That said, even if printed books are to fall out of favor with the majority of
literate people, it could still be a good idea to maintain physical libraries
of works that many would find essential in the (perhaps unlikely) case that
digital records fail or become inconvenient to access.

~~~
randomgyatwork
That quote was strange to me too, but for another reason, reading is a
solitude activity, the point is to think for yourself.

~~~
ashark
I'm not super interested in the thoughts of those I "know and trust" as I'm
reading (since a circle of real friends would be too small and too unlikely to
have all read the same things for this to be effective, I'm assuming this is
the social-network definition of "know and trust", which is to say "follow on
Twitter", so that's an _even stronger_ no) _but_ high-quality, extensive
commentary and annotation by multiple experts would be great. Many books have
some of this in the form of an introduction and some footnotes/endnotes, but
I'd love the ability to turn on much higher levels of this for, say, second
readings.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like ebooks are good at handling even _basic_
annotations—certainly no better than dead-tree books—so I'm not seeing that
happening any time soon. Plus if it ever happens it'll probably be some stupid
online service, which I don't want. I want it to be part of the book, like DVD
commentary tracks, or at least a downloadable add-on file of some kind that
sticks around as long as I want it and can be backed up.

------
macinjosh
Not to worry anyone. I just checked and all my books are still here on my
bookshelves.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Except I can't find that book I read once, by that author, what was her name?
It had a blue cover...

~~~
bonaldi
I get the joke, but that highlights something I value in books: their
physicality chimes well with my ways of thinking. Sometimes I _can_ only
remember that a book was blue, and will wander my shelves looking at blue
books until I find it.

Likewise I can remember the bit I'm looking for was on the bottom left of a
page with a big picture on it, and will scan through the book till I get to
it.

Both things I lose with eBooks; though of course there are plenty of other
compensations.

~~~
ashark
I've found that I remember authors and titles of books far less well when
reading ebooks. My guess is it's because I don't see the book's cover lying
around the house even when I'm not actively reading it as I do with a real
book, and because it always starts right where I left off, so I don't see the
cover when I pick it up to start reading. Plus no author/title page headers.

~~~
animal531
I have the same problem. It's really annoying when I'm trying to tell someone
about this great book, but I don't know who wrote it or what its called.

------
phowat
Despite all the downsides of ebooks, I must admit I've gotten lazy and
generally won't purchase a book if it's not available through Kindle. Having
to carry around a book with me is a huge nuisance and I'd much rather just get
my phone and read from it. I've recently got a paper book as a gift from a
friend and I'm currently reading it and I kind of had forgotten how annoying
it is to carry this huge stack of paper around.

------
sgdread
I buy lots of technical books in early-access programs like MEAP from Manning
and read chapter as they come. Since price difference between eBook and
eBook+print is just $10, I usually buy paper book too (for backup). In MEAP
chapters come as they ready and by the time book is printed, I already read
the whole book. Over last 6 years I haven't touched any of these printed
books, but I still remember the heaviest boxes during my latest move - all
filled with books :D

Audible is another good substitution for non-technical paper books. It
transforms daily commute into productive time. You don't need constant
connection to network - books can be pre-loaded and then accessed offline
without any problems plus I have a luxury to set 1.25x play speed and enjoy
speed of reading above average.

Though, while role of paper books is reduced, there's still a lot of value for
paper books. Paper books are much easier to follow for home repairs (DIY
guides). I like printed catalogues more than electronic ones (like IKEA's one
[1]).

[1] IKEA bookbook:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0)

~~~
j_s
Thanks for the reminder about audio books! I would love to see a list of HN
recommendations for audiobooks similar to what has been scraped together a few
times from all the various book recommendations!

------
pmontra
Other kind of considerations: I'll be buying paper books until

1) I can send an ebook as a gift. AFAIK Amazon allows that only in the USA.

2) I can backup my ebooks and move them to other readers I own.

I suspect that #1 and #2 are related, technically and in the business model.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I agree those are useful. But consider they are also hard(er) to do with paper
books. Pack a paper book up in a box; write an address label; hike down to the
Post office?

And backup? What does that even mean for a paper book? Photocopy? EBooks are
in the cloud; you can never actually lose one forever. Just buy it again,
which is very, very likely to be cheaper than photocopying a paper book.

Just saying.

~~~
DanBC
> EBooks are in the cloud; you can never actually lose one forever. Just buy
> it again, which is very, very likely to be cheaper than photocopying a paper
> book.

In 2012 I bought some music in electronic format from Amazon. A bit later they
introduced the Amazon music service. I looked in my purchased music section,
and the music I'd bought in 2012 wasn't there, and if I lose the downloaded
files it's not available to me unless I buy it again or the rights holders
come to some agreement with Amazon.

It's possible that stuff will drop out of the cloud when the rights become
impossible to work out. I'm not sure how likely that is with books, but it
happens with films. The most well known is "Point Break", which now can't be
shown in public by cinemas because no-one knows who owns the rights.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Books go out of print too - maybe the e-form is _more_ reliable in that
regard.

And sure we're not quite there yet - the entire library of congress isn't
online yet. But we all imagine its going to end up there, no contest.

The real issue is, does e-book loss (losing rights) compare unfavorably with
real book loss (loaned out and forgotten; burned or discarded; degraded to
unusability)?

~~~
pmontra
Paper books and CDs are an expensive pain when you move to another home, plus
they take space and make you spend money in bookshelves. I'd love to be able
to zip all my books :-) At least I can't lose the right to read them (unless
_very bad_ things happen).

Loaned books and not returned: same thing with files if cloud service will
ever let you do that and you can't make a copy for yourself. However they
could let us set an automatic return date. That will solve the problem. The
point is: why bother if they won't make money out of it? Pay a little fee to
borrow or to lend?

Accidentally burned vs accidentally deleted: same thing. Only the ability of
backing them up is going to save you. Or a cloud service unless we are ruling
it out for the rights issue.

Degradation: hard to say. Ebooks haven't been around for enough time to say
how many of them I could lose in the next years. However I still have files
from the mid 90s so if one really cares about them it's probably safe to say
that they won't be lost. I can probably read some cassettes and floppy disks
from the early and mid 80s if I bother to switch on their original hw (and if
it works). However it's a vastly larger pain than reading an old book on aged
paper. My parents have some of those books from the early 20th century and we
can read them. Obviously they might have thrown away other books and it won't
be the case if those books were bits.

Still: without cloud services are we going to be able to read epub or mobi in
a 100 years? And with cloud services how many books won't be available anymore
by then because of policies, politics, commercial rights, censorship?

------
larrik
I stopped buying new paper books about a decade before I started buying
ebooks. And even then, I would buy maybe a book or 2 per year?

In my first year or two of owning a Kindle, I think I bought more ebooks than
I had bought new paper books in my entire life. Even still buying ebooks
doesn't give me a fraction of the pause that buying a physical book does. A
physical book is a perpetual space commitment, after all.

So I didn't "switch to ebooks from paper," I switched to ebooks from nothing,
largely.

------
overcast
I still purchase hardcover of books that I love, from a collectors standpoint.
Especially if they contain complex layout, illustrations or just beautifully
made. But there is no denying the convenience of using my kindle, and get $1-5
books. The last time I was in a book store, it was totally packed with people,
so I really don't think they are going anywhere, at least not in the immediate
future.

------
alphadevx
Not on my bookshelf (a physical thing, where I like to display physical
things). Books are not just "data", but have an aesthetic appeal (especially
hard backs) that a screen will never replace for many of us.

~~~
ashark
I arrange mine chronologically by author's first major work (or rough date of
the first work in it in the case of collections, like Lichtheim's _Ancient
Egyptian Literature_ ) so my very _shelves_ are didactic. Even if I can't tell
you exactly when a book was written I can probably imagine where it is on the
shelves and pin it down to "after Fielding, before Dickens... after but very
near Austen, I think".

Can't really do that with e-books. Even if you set up your collection to be
displayed that way, you're not going to look at it several times every day as
you move around your house. Won't be effective—probably just annoying.

[EDIT] slackism for italicizing to HNism.

~~~
sevensor
Plus, shelves have two (possibly three) dimensions, so you can have
organization running vertically and horizontally. The third dimension is into
the bookshelf, if you have a bunch of double-shelved paperbacks. I have
_Jurassic Park_ shelved next to _Frankenstein_ , with Tolkein up and to the
right. _The Lord of the Rings_ is in front of _The Silmarillion_ , _The
Hobbit_ , and _Unfinished Tales_.

------
jib
I am 70% e-books in the last three years or so. A quick count gives ~200 books
in my kindle library, and I dont think I've bought more than 100 paper books
in the same time frame.

Paper books are mostly read and dispose of for me anyway, and I don't
typically re-read books, so e-books just give me the flexibility of not
needing to bring 5-6 big logs when I go on vacation, and mean I dont need to
run to the book shop when I need something new to read.It is also cheaper by a
significant margin.

For me - having access to a huge library at the click of a button, and less
weight to carry around far outweighs any disadvantages of screen light,
battery time etc.

------
a_t
If I read an ebook and it really hits home for whatever reason I'll buy a
paper copy. Not to read, but to act as a sort of physical reference point to
stop me from forgetting about its existence. A souvenir of itself.

~~~
knight17
For taking notes paper books are unparalleled.

\-
[http://history.hanover.edu/marginalia.php](http://history.hanover.edu/marginalia.php)
\- [http://www.levenger.com/ABOUT-LEVENGER-536/How-
To-s-679/Mast...](http://www.levenger.com/ABOUT-LEVENGER-536/How-
To-s-679/Masterly-Marginalia-694.aspx) \- [http://www.levenger.com/ABOUT-
LEVENGER-536/How-To-s-679/Writ...](http://www.levenger.com/ABOUT-
LEVENGER-536/How-To-s-679/Writing-In-Books-821.aspx)

If you are one of the do not desecrate my book types you would not find this
palatable. For me reading a book means having an outline of the chapter,
section and the entire book on paper. Creating marginalia and annotating is in
their infant state in the electronic form (epub).

If I've to consume something electronically, always prefer the PDF any day as
they look gorgeous — the design, and the typography especially, though reading
on very small screens are problematic.

~~~
bcbrown
I've just started writing marginalia, after long feeling like that was
desecration. It's been a revelation, and has transformed how I read. I'm much
more engaged, and it feels more like a two-sided conversation than a one-sided
lecture.

Thanks for the links, they look useful.

------
abrie
Paper is nice, but electronics are nicer. I've been working on a book which
began on paper, but has evolved into a digital format. It is not 'digital
literature' or particularly interactive; but it cannot be replicated with
paper. If anyone is interested, it's available in the Google Play Store alpha
channel:

[https://play.google.com/apps/testing/ca.goeiebook.montreal.p...](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/ca.goeiebook.montreal.preview)

------
kbart
Ebooks are still inferior to paper books in many ways and that's mostly
because of stupid, artificial limitations inflicted by publishers. Until
Ebooks have open, multi device, easily reformatable standard (my experience
reading on a small phone screen varies from terrible to utterly unreadable)
and sharing ability among friends, it's no deal for me. PDF is close, but
still not there.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hm. Many of those objections are objections for paper books too? When was the
last time you 'reformatted' an article from a magazine into a pamphlet form?
When was the last time you magically ported a book onto your airplane? Even
sharing - you have to actually _give the book away_ to accomplish that, and
you have to actually _be in the same room_ as your friend.

Its easy to criticize ebooks; there's much to criticize there. But lets be
careful not to claim that means ebooks are worse than paper. Because paper can
do _none_ of the many things that ebooks can do.

------
jrcii
ebooks to me are a solution in search of a problem. I like how books look, how
they smell, the feel of turning the pages, being able to dogear a page to keep
my place, loaning them out, seeing them on my bookshelf. I also form memories
of where information physically is in a reference book that I may want to
refer back to.

~~~
salmonet
>ebooks to me are a solution in search of a problem.

Ebooks make it easy to read anywhere and anytime you have spare time without
lugging physical books around

~~~
coldtea
Well, that's the parents case though, as that wasn't really much of a problem
people had.

"Oh this random place I happen to be is a perfect place to read, if only I had
my library with me to pick a book".

If people know they'll be traveling, they pack a few books to have with them
(or buy at the airport). If they're commuting (e.g. to work on a train or long
bus ride) then they bring along the book they are reading at that point in
time. But usually they just read at their house/study/office.

As for casual reading, there's always tons of stuff on the web.

~~~
jpalmer
This was very much a problem I had. As a person who prefers to read books over
stuff on the web, I enjoy the fact that as long as I have my phone (always) I
can knock out a chapter virtually anywhere.

Since moving to ebooks my book consumption has increased 4x. I've replaced
random phone scrolling during downtimes with books and it has been fantastic.

I'm to the point now where I actually prefer reading books on my phone even
when a larger display device is nearby.

------
randomgyatwork
Serious reading is best with a book, but news and quick reads are ok on a
screen.

These days I find I can focus much better with a physical book, maybe I've
trained myself. With digital reading I'm automatically in skim mode - though I
might be obtaining a broader sense of knowledge.

------
gravypod
The only thing that turns me away from ebooks is that most sellers could just
stop providing books to you.

If amazon goes out of business and your kindle breaks, good luck getting your
books back.

I can't imagine trusting any service that I don't host with data as important
as the contents of books.

I have some books that have been passed down to me by my grandpa from Russia.
I wouldn't be able to do that with an ebook that I don't host myself.

TL;DR: When it gets less proprietary and I can use my own device and storage
medium I'll buy into it.

------
martinpw
One thing I would miss is visiting someone's house and getting a very quick
but quite profound insight into their life history and interests by browsing
their bookshelves. A lot harder to do with an ebook collection.

The same in reverse - I have a lot of books, and visitors will often go
straight to the bookshelves and start browsing. Lots of interesting
conversation starters right there.

------
esaym
At least for me, I've been buying tons of books used from Amazon. You can't
beat the less than 10 dollar price vs 20 plus for the ebook.

------
Ftuuky
You can't use an ebook to level a table, can you?

~~~
DrScump
Get with the 21st century, willya? That's what old phones (and their
batteries) are for.

------
xufi
I like the way old books feel and look. The way you turn the pages can't be
comparable to an ebook which I only find useful in certain cases such as a
textbook.

------
m52go
I have no qualms with either format. Both have their pros and cons.

But until ebooks have an equivalent of "used" ebooks, I'm going to continue
buying used paper books. $1 or $3 for a beautiful break from backlighting, as
well as the opportunity to [gasp] use my hands, is the way I'll go. Ebooks, no
matter how old, are an order of magnitude higher in price. No thanks!

And although this has nothing to do with my personal consumption, publishers
need to figure out how they're going to stop ripping off libraries. It's part
of the reason I'm personally against subsidizing the ebook industry in any
form (for now).

------
spoinkaroo
I have had a kinde for 2-3 years, but rarely use it. Marking up books with a
pen/minor annotations are significantly easier on paper books for me.

------
bhewes
Paper books will go the way of Vinyl.

~~~
L-Logic
Eventually yes. Too much waste.

