Access, not ownership. My view on digital books.
Friday, June 10, 2011 at 4:43PM Digital books, blah blah blah -- the argument seems to centre around all things related to ownership. For me, it isn't about ownership -- unless you see yourself as the sum of your things or you consider that books are a better medium from which to learn or enjoy.
Which brings me onto the key point in all of this: access. If that means $10 on a book because I didn't buy it already / don't have it to hand / lost access to it due to a poor purchasing decisions -- then so be it. Next time it'll be $0 on a wikipedia article or blog post or whatever.
If you really do want to "own" your digital content in the I-can-and-will-take-all-responsibility-for-its-wellbeing sense, then you can -- all the major digital book services provide you with permanent, resilient, local, disconnected copies of files. You just need to know how to manage each and every source and be prepared to do a little management. Compared to the pain in the ass that is finding, moving, storing and living with a large number of physical books I think it's no big deal.
Wired: "An unfinished e-book isn’t a constant reminder to finish reading it." WTF? An unfinished e-book isn't a burden on your conventionally-bent self assessment. As it happens, I do finish most books I read. In fact, I finish far more ebooks than I did physical ones because I've always got them all with me. Further counters to Wired's nonsense an be found here at allaboutthevoluntary.com.
Revisionism is a valid concern. But with a little more market saturation and a few more tools, it'll be hard to get away with. Once DRM goes away (it will), it's a non issue as copies proliferate and comparisons are easy. Existing DRM will be brute-forced in about the same time it takes for DRM in the book space to go away. It's really not an issue from a technical point of view. Sure, it'll happen (and does in print books as well as ebooks), but it'll be highlighted.
In the Kindle app on my iPhone I generally have between 10 and 15 books on the go, and manage to get through 1-2 a week. This is done either in 15-minute segments when I have a free hand and eye, or as a reference to whatever I'm working on. At the minute that includes Enter The Kettlebell!, Replay: The History of Videogames, Atlas Shrugged, The War of Art, The Art of War, The Vegetarian Myth, and The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Demon's Captive and Fun Inc. That includes a book not available in this country in print, one that I've been reading for about 3 months, one that's entirely reference, one that has been revised and translated many, many times but I was able to find an as-far-as-can-tell faithful translation of and one that even I may be too embarrassed to own in print.
We're at same point we were 5-7 years ago with digital music. The transition might take a little longer (recordings of music as property have been around for far less time than the printed book) but it'll happen, and in so happening a lot of these little things will go away. Those who really care about "books" (I don't by the way, I care about information), will revel (I am revelling already -- see above paragraph) in the access granted to them and embrace digital books. For the majority, the perceived snobbishness around books will eventually go away with this realisation.
The motivations of the remaining minority will become clear. Either they do actually prefer physical books as a way of accessing and digesting information (and this is entirely reasonable) or they perceive some other value in the ownership and accumulation of those physical books.