A Post by Michael B. Spring
The Pros and Cons of E-books (January 25, 2011)
The long awaited maturation of e-ink technologies has sparked an
uptick
in e-book sales. As I have discussed elsewhere, while there is an
uptick in sales of electronic books, paper still dominates our world in
terms of published and consumed books. While the growth of e-books is
exponential, rising from 1.5% to 5% of the book market in 2010, it is
still small. To date disposable publications, such as newspapers, have
suffered much greater incursion in the digital environment, and are not
as dependent on specialized e-ink technology. That is, websites and
smartphone applications give us access to news stories and events in
digest form with supplements via color photos and videos.
E-books are a more specialized technology. To understand on the pros
and cons of e-books, it is important to understand the particular uses
from the point of view of the user. Two illustrations help to clarify
what I mean. If you read history, romance or mystery novels on
airplanes to pass time, e-books present tremendous advantages over
paper novels or books loaded on your PC. You can load more books than
you might read in a month, read them in any level of ambient light,
easily manipulate them in an airplane seat, or hotel pool deck, and
have a very long battery life and low luggage weight. If, on the other
hand, you are writing a research article in which you need to copy
passages from a number of relevant articles, they are less useful. In
this latter situation, you need to quickly compare passages in multiple
documents or write a passage as you read. It may be very important to
be able to scan lots of material simultaneously. E-books have been
targeted toward casual readers who are focused on one document at a
time and focused on reading more than annotating. With this overall
determinant in hand, we can look more specifically at the pros and cons
of e-books.
Pros
Data density: Because an
e-book can hold the equivalent of hundreds
of
paper books, the data density of e-books, both in terms of volume and
weight is much greater than paper equivalents.
Marginal cost: The cost of
e-books is significantly lower than the
cost
of paper books. Even when the cost of power and infrastructure are
considered, there is a reasonable cost trade-off for e-books versus
paper books.
Green sensitivity: While
there is growing awareness about the
environmental cost of the materials, batteries and electronic circuitry
used in digital devices, it appears that overall e-books will be more
environmentally sensitive than paper books.
Display and power: Under
normal conditions, resolutions of more than
480dpi are lost on most humans. In this respect, e-books, with a screen
resolution of about 170dpi still lag behind paper, but not far. What is
important is that the display is passive, like paper, not active like a
PC, and thus provides more comfortable reading behavior in almost all
light levels. The power consumption, compared to PC’s, is miniscule
allowing for long battery life from minimal battery weight.
Digital Services: Like all
digital devices, e-books provide a
plethora
of free add on services that can make reading much more pleasurable.
These include access to a dictionary to find word definitions,
bookmarking, linking one section to another, searching entire books for
words or phrases, translation to other languages, and internet access
for all sorts of lookups. These services will only increase with time.
Cons
Hardware Dependence: E-books
are one more piece of specialized
hardware
on which we are dependent. For all practical purposed they are
dedicated to reading and not only must we purchase the device and
amortize the cost, but we have to remember to charge it, replace it if
it breaks, and make sure we don’t forget to carry it whenever we might
want to use it. Hardware dependence is further complicated by data
dependence.
Data dependence: Each of
the major hardware platforms supports one
or
more data formats. This situation is most complicated by a concern with
digital rights management (DRM). In order to protect illegal copying or
distribution various encryption methods are used – such as Kindles AZW
format. The Sony reader does not support AZW but does support Broadband
e-book and the Nook by Barnes and Nobel support neither of these but
does support eReader. All of the readers, and most others support Adobe
PDF and plain text, but there are various restrictions and caveats.
While these restrictions and limitations will eventually disappear,
right now the user may be limited in what they can read by the data
format limitations of the e-book they choose.
Limited Screen Territory: There
are
times
when
it is desirable to
see a
large amount of test or graphics at once, or to see multiple screen
images at the same time. Obviously this is the converse of the small
size and simplicity of the interface for reading novels. E-books offer
more territory than smart phones but nowhere near as much as a PC.
Limited Functionality: At
our phones are emerging as
multi-functional
devices, e-books are emerging as focused function devices. While I am
sure the makers of e-books would argue that the advantages far outweigh
this limitation, an argument to which I am sympathetic, it remains the
case that a user who needs a platform to read and write on at the same
time, or that needs to read and calculate while looking at several
documents, will not be overly impressed with what an e-book can do for
them.
Color and Motion: While we
are already seeing development that will
move e-ink technology from black and white to color, it is likely that
color will come at significant additional cost. IN addition the slow
screen reprint limitations of e-ink will keep this technology from
including the display of color videos with low power reflective display
technologies. While human invention and creativity will surely overcome
these limitations, it appears that high speed display repainting is
several years down the road at low cost and low power.
Conclusion
All technologies follow an S-curve of
adoption. That is, the early
use
of technology is limited to a few adventurous users. With time, the
rate of adoption increases and then begins to level off as the few
remaining users are slowly convinced to adopt it. This phenomenon is
often referred to as the “S” curve of technology adoption. The curve
may be gradual or steep. But there are always early adopters and
reluctant adopters with the majority of the users coming in a shorter
period of time – the steep slope part of the curve. It is clear to most
observers that we have begun the steep slope part of the curve.
When all is said and done, we can
conclude a few things.
There are
enough good things to say about e-books to say that they are here to
stay. Most of the limitations and disadvantages will eventually go
away. It will remain true that like cellphones, e-books will become
more generalized and powerful devices. Whether they will become a part
of the three screen world is not yet clear. (Microsoft and others have
established “three screen” strategies – TV, PC, Smartphone. It would
seem reasonable to suggest that it is likely we will find ourselves in
a 3.5 screen world. To the big three we will add e-books and all of the
other very specialized screens with which we interact – i.e. ATM
machines, car radio screen, microwave ovens, thermostats, watches,
cameras, etc. etc. etc.