Does anyone use a Kindle?

piracy wrecking the model that is being built. I tend to agree.
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I tend to not. Look, there's still rampant music piracy. But how is iTunes doing? Very well. This is the market the labels could have had (but they could have had more of it), had they preceded or at least co-opted Napster and its brethren. They fought it, they lost, and now they're irreparably fucked.

People will pay money for convenience and one-stop shopping. So far, piracy can't provide both, and sometimes either. I agree with you that the publishing industry might not be savvy enough -- the record labels weren't, and fuck 'em if they can't take an opportunity -- but they could pivot pretty quickly if they had the institutional will. I suspect they don't, but if they want to survive, they will. Amazon et al would pay a sufficiently organized content provider, if it existed, for access to their content in an effort to kill/dominate the hardware or e-commerce alternatives. I do not, and will not ever, understand why content providers can't see this.
 
Thor,

Publishers love the physical product as well as the writing. Just look at the number of posters who wax poetic about the feel of paper, etc.
 
Yes, but as I said in a different thread (or maybe it was this one a few days ago), that number isn't really relevant. They can't preserve the industry, and neither can the publishers who wax the same poetry. The choice is as we've seen the music industry face and mostly fail to understand until it was too late: adapt, perish, or at least wane into insignificance.

People who love physical books will probably be served by a niche industry just like vinyl, or heirloom beans, or unsulfured pineau d'aunis. But it won't be The Industry, any more than Puzelat will challenge Constellation Brands. I don't know if the future is the eReader or not, and I don't know if the Kindle and its competitors are the television (a long-term solution) or the Blu-ray (a short-term stopgap), but I do know that the future is digital and not bound, and that the industry's survival rests on being nimble and prepared for the former, rather than clinging to the latter.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
If energy becomes expensive, this will matter.
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Energy is expensive, but the true cost doesn't show up on bills.

Couldn't such devices be equipped with a few photovoltaic cells? A cost/benefit calculation certainly,
but eventually that would make a difference.
 
originally posted by Ned Hoey:
Couldn't such devices be equipped with a few photovoltaic cells? A cost/benefit calculation certainly, but eventually that would make a difference.
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I am always amused by digital watches that display an analog watch face on their LCDs.
 
There are essential differences between print and music. Publishing companies really don't depend on selling physical books. They depend on selling language through whatever delivery system sells it. The widespread dissemination after first sale, through loans, libraries, etc., has always been part of the equation so that Google books, to the contrary notwithstanding, internet reproduction is not the same size of problem. Indeed, most publishers I know--academic publishers mostly, but one can read the same thing in publisher's outlets--have for years looked to move to the internet for dissemination. Nothing about the Kindle, particularly, presents any real challenge to publishing or its economy.

What does present a challenge would be the death of the book, by which I do not mean the death of the physical object but the death of extended discursive argument, analysis, interpretation, narrative, demanding an attention span of more than 15 seconds. That indeed might kill the industry. It will also probably kill Kindle.
 
True. You need at least 30 seconds for the commercial. However, once Jersey Shore begins, the mind enters a state of zen-like nothingness, thus no attention span is really required. Perception of space-time just ceases to be.

I know. I watched it once. (ugh, I'm outed)
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
What does present a challenge would be the death of the book, by which I do not mean the death of the physical object but the death of extended discursive argument, analysis, interpretation, narrative, demanding an attention span of more than 15 seconds. That indeed might kill the industry. It will also probably kill Kindle.
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Against the backdrop of human history, the life of the book has been a minor miracle. I think most of humankind probably does not need nor deserves books in the Loesbergian sense.
 
Monthly free eBook from UChicago Press, Tim and Tom, available to Adobe Ditital Editions compatible eReaders...

Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen with Ron Rapoport
Tim and Tom
An American Comedy in Black and White
264 pages, 16 halftones 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 2008
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ISBN: 9780226709024
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ISBN: 9780226709000 Published September 2008

I have known Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen as comedians and friends since 1975, but I never knew Tim and Tom, the comedy team. This book is four compelling stories in one compilation: One story about Tim Reid, sad, fascinating and uplifting. One story about Tom Dreesen, a man consumed by a goal and a great witness to a bygone era of show business that one cant help but long for. A third story about seeking recognition in the world of entertainment. And finally, a story about race and culture in a country that should have been farther down the road to understanding, tolerance and human kindness than it was in the 1970s. Tim and Tom is a great story, the best kind of story, well told, about two men struggling to prove themselves. This entertaining book offers many meaningful lessons and vivid reflection.David Letterman
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Free eBook

. . . . . . Pete
 
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