[jdiscar]

> So movie theater > movie at home for most people.

I'm really wonder if that's true for most people. Sure, there are people that would rather watch in the theater, but there are also people who'd rather hold a hardcover to read.

[brandur]

I'm not sure that the movie analogy works all that well from the position of either the article's author or your parent. For years theaters have been losing their edge as their experience degrades with price increases and the addition of advertising, and people's home watching experience continues to improve with bigger TVs and easier access to media.

But even so, theaters have been amazingly resilient to the digital age. I'd chalk this up to the fact that they provide a shared social movie-going experience that's not quite something you can replicate at home (i.e. it's something to go do with your friends), and in some cases, you want to see certain hits with a certain timeliness so that you can talk about them at school/work/with friends.

Hardcovers are just not like this at all. Even if you'd compare them favorably to an ebook, you'd be hard pressed to find one person on Earth who would say that they provide a superior experience over a paperback (except that they look more handsome on a bookshelf). They are, and always have been, quite simply a way for the publishing industry to squeeze a few extra dollars out of consumers who were willing to pony up the money so they could read a book early. This is exactly the sort of wrinkle that you'd expect to be ironed out in the Information Age — people's tolerance for this kind of profiteering decreases as access to media broadens.

The article's author is right that diminishing the edge of hardcovers is certain to cut into the margins of bookstores like his own, but he's wrong that it's a bad thing (directly). It might cost him money, but it's better for literally every single book buyer.

[ars]

> Hardcovers are just not like this at all .... you'd be hard pressed to find one person on Earth who would say that they provide a superior experience over a paperback

I like hardcovers better than paperbacks. They are easier to read, larger usually, they stay open with less force, they don't break as easily.

The printing is higher quality, the paper is brighter.

There is a thing called (I think) a trade paperback which is a hardcover quality book with a paper cover.