I found this blog to be very interesting because of the points it presented on whether e-books are a good deal for consumers. Unlike traditional books, E-books present an initial fixed cost–the tablet itself. Then books can be loaded onto the tablet at a smaller cost (sometimes) than printed books. The article also touches on how books don’t get damaged once they are purchased. They cannot be misplaced either unless the tablet is lost. Is this the relationship that consumers have with books though?
Some people buy books, read them once, and never touch them again. Others like to swap books with friends. In this case, as the article notes, e-books might actually present more costs to consumers than traditional books.
That’s interesting to see that the “cheap” e-books have the potential to build up prices past that of regular books. Including the idea of sharing books, it shows that convenience can only go so far, and that making one aspect convenient renders another to be troublesome.
I agree with the points about how the convenience of the E-books also has its costs. It would be terrible to misplace your kindle and therefore lose all of the downloaded books that were on it; that would be very unlikely to happen with regular books however. Also, in regard to sharing an e-book with a friend you would not only be giving that one book to your friend, but also all the other books that you have loaded on the kindle; thus, in order to share you would have to be willing to give up your entire kindle for a certain period of time- that doesn’t sound too convenient.