Unpopular Opinions Society

[kibbleforlola]

You just don't understand, 42, and that makes me sad. You can't smell a kindle. You can't feel the weight of knowledge in your hands. You can't find notes and doodles and scrap bookmarks in a kindle. You can't brouse the stacks and discover new books with a kindle. And no, browsing a database is most definitely not the same thing. You can't skip work and spend the day in a corner of the library with ebooks. You can't lend ebooks. You can't flip through them. They are difficult to navigate - you can't sticky tab the important bits with different colors for different thoughts.

But mostly, for me, it's the smell. The only thing better than a new book smell is an old book smell.

 

[kibbleforlola]

Many audiophiles would beg to differ.

We have Phish's last album on vinyl.

 

[FortyTwo]

You just don't understand, 42, and that makes me sad. You can't smell a kindle. You can't feel the weight of knowledge in your hands. You can't find notes and doodles and scrap bookmarks in a kindle. You can't brouse the stacks and discover new books with a kindle. And no, browsing a database is most definitely not the same thing. You can't skip work and spend the day in a corner of the library with ebooks. You can't lend ebooks. You can't flip through them. They are difficult to navigate - you can't sticky tab the important bits with different colors for different thoughts.

But mostly, for me, it's the smell. The only thing better than a new book smell is an old book smell.

All things that I feel! I absolutely understand, perhaps better than many of my literary-phobic peers. I never said I didn't like books. But that doesn't change that it's sentimentality. The same thing could be argued for any technology that has currently been made obsolete.

Perhaps the old navigators of the oceans were upset with the invention of the steam engine, or the captains of steamboats with GPS. Has the process of using compasses and protractors and measuring the angle of the stars in naval navigation been made obsolete by these inventions? On a large scale, absolutely. Does that make people who wish to use them wrong? No. It just means that the times have changed.

 

[kibbleforlola]

People still use compasses regularly, FYI.

 

[Moll Flanders]

My Grandparents had bookcases full of beautiful classic books so I can understand why people want to keep books as a collection and my husband has a large collection of records. I can see FortyTwo's point though.

 

[Spang]

Are records produced today on a massive scale?

I don't have any numbers, but vinyl records continue to not be obsolete, because the sound quality is better than an 8-track, a cassette, a CD or an MP3. Plus, there's the whole act of taking a record out of its sleeve (and the smell of a record), putting it onto the turntable and dropping the needle to it -- something you just can't emulate with an iPod.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

People love to hate paper books for not being environmentally friendly or whatever, but I think they're more environmentally friendly the typical ereader. Books can be reused, recycled, loaned, etc. No way I would give my iPad to a friend to read a book on it once I'm done. And if the iPad breaks, repair, even if possible, would be costly. Given the rate at which hardware becomes obsolete, I'm more likely to throw it away and buy a new one. (OK, so I can't really afford that, but then I'd be out all those books.) It cannot be recycled.
Even if only a percentage of books are ever recycled, at least they *can* be recycled.

I have switched my print magazine over to a digital-only subscription, but again if something happened to the device, I'm out the rest of the year's subscription fee, with nothing to show for it.

And what about people who can't afford a $100-700 device, which they then have to purchase books to read on it? I can buy a new book for $10 or borrow it from the library for free.


Print media is far from obsolete.

 

[kazyeeqen]

People who dwell on the past annoy me. Specifically, past technologies. I think there's a certain sentimentality about things that needs to go out the window if we're to progress as a species.

Things like letter writing, paper books, the "absolute necessity" of face-to-face contact for human relationships, factory farming (obviously), the superiority of human labor, and high regards for organized religion are all obsolete. I know that sounds exactly like something that someone of my generation would say, and, well, hey, that's the point! That's okay! Things are evolving. So when people stick around on the past, on ways of doing things that are costly to us or the planet, I get annoyed.

What do you mean by 'the superiority of human labor'?

 

[das_nut]

You just don't understand, 42, and that makes me sad. You can't smell a kindle. You can't feel the weight of knowledge in your hands. You can't find notes and doodles and scrap bookmarks in a kindle. You can't brouse the stacks and discover new books with a kindle. And no, browsing a database is most definitely not the same thing. You can't skip work and spend the day in a corner of the library with ebooks. You can't lend ebooks. You can't flip through them. They are difficult to navigate - you can't sticky tab the important bits with different colors for different thoughts.

But on the other hand, you can do stuff with a kindle that would be near impossible to do with dead tree books.

I suspect that when Gutenberg made his famous printing press, there were cries that the printed book did not have the warmth or care that hand-scribed books had.

When people first started switching over to bound books, some probably advocated for the use of scrolls instead.

 

[Wolfie]

I will never read a book on a Kindle, ever. If books go out of print, I will stop reading. Same with magazines and local newspapers.

My dad at one time plus a compass could out-perform any GPS hands down. I have a friend who is the same way.

 

[Alice-Bee]

I will never read a book on a Kindle, ever. If books go out of print, I will stop reading. Same with magazines and local newspapers.

My dad at one time plus a compass could out-perform any GPS hands down. I have a friend who is the same way.

Probably better than Google Maps anyday!

 

[Freesia]

I love letter writing. And I far prefer paper books to a kindle.

 

[thefadedone]

I will never read a book on a Kindle, ever. If books go out of print, I will stop reading. Same with magazines and local newspapers.

My dad at one time plus a compass could out-perform any GPS hands down. I have a friend who is the same way.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I don't think 42's thought on this are really just about that generation. These were the sort of things my generation, at that age, said back in the 80s.

So 42; can you lend ebooks? If you can't, don't you think that is bad for the spread of ideas though the population?

 

[Cerebellion]

It all depends on the book. Art books I'd like to have physical copies of, but I don't really give a damn about the format if it's just text. If I can get it in paper easier than digital, I'll read it that way. The opposite is also true. Format means nothing to me as long as it says the same thing. Also, having little to no space and an allergy to dust and mold, I kind of prefer digital to print. But ultimately, it's irrelevant.

 

[Envy]

The good thing about reading real books is that switching pages is much faster.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

I've seen what my cookbooks look like after cooking with them a few times. I've loaded up a bunch of frequently-used recipes into digital format, but I'm still very reluctant to use the iPad in the kitchen. (I have a stand with a splatter shield, but it's still scary.)

I also can't imagine browsing through a digital cookbook the same way I browse through printed cookbooks to get inspiration, or just to enjoy the pictures.

Sometimes I'll cook with two or three of them open at a time. How would I do that with digital versions? Buy three iPads, and keep them all up to date, then throw them away and buy new ones in a few years when they can no longer run the current OS adequately? That's not going to happen, and it's not environmentally friendly.

My cookbooks, OTOH, do not become unusable even if a newer, fancier version comes out. I have cookbooks from my mom and grandmother that are still usable. When I no longer want them, I can give them to a friend or donate them to the library, so that someone else might use them.

If I had purchased a cookbook (or any book, really) on it, and no longer wanted it anymore, I could delete it and then it's gone, no one else could make use of it. I can't sell it or give it to someone else.

Digital books may be convenient sometimes (I love having ten books and a magazine in my purse at all times without having to actually carry ten books and a magazine), but they're not more environmentally friendly or cost-effective than printed books.

 

[Envy]

How is older tablets considered obsolete when newer versions come out?

Especially if you mostly use them for reading books, the programs for those don't change significantly over time.

 

[Cerebellion]

Sometimes, it's the resolution of the screen or the responsiveness of it. I have an older model ereader and, while the resolution and responsiveness is good, newer models make the screen on mine look like dirty glasses. Also, it depends on what you want your reader to do. If you just want a reader, than nothing is really obsolete. If you want apps or internet access, than newer models are the way to go.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

The newer OS' are designed to run on the most up-to-date hardware specs. Reports I've read say the original iPad becomes slow and clunky when running the current iOS. The best way to read things is through apps, and developers tend to try to keep up with the newest available OS, eventually dropping support for devices running older OS. The original iPad isn't obsolete yet, but it will be eventually.

You could still read if you format your thing for PDF and read through Dropbox, for example, but the original formatting will often be messed up, and it takes a small amount of effort to do the conversion.

My library just got a digital lending program (only a few titles available right now), but you have to have one particular app to use it. Older Kindle devices can't run the app. (I don't think Kindle Paperwhite can, either.)

If a device gets to the point where you can only read things that were already on it, or through a poorly-formatted conversion, why would you keep it instead of getting a new device? (Assuming the financial means.)

Someone with the original Kindle, who didn't care about digital lending, a d only read things available for purchase from Amazon would probably be ok.
(I suspect that, at some point, Amazon will drop support for the older devices, so they can try to get you to buy a new one. Or it will break.)