[boomboomsubban]

> 1) could be solved by an algorithm, but I write algorithms for a living and I don't trust them.

Seems like one that needs a largely random algorithm with some additional weight for recent and popular works. Amazon has a separate goal to a library, using their stores isn't a fair comparison.

2 requires pictures or facsimiles of book spines, not particularly tricky. This entire process is ridiculous though. The only way you can spot anywhere near 200 interesting books in a minute is if every book is interesting, what you're actually judging is likely a marketing decision, and you have no reason to expect your picks were particularly good.

3 is a copyright issue. Google books already has a surprising number of those books archived, and your chance of reading them would be far greater if they just required one random person to find the book and upload it. Even still, in 20 years the digital libraries will be overflowing with people you can't meet talking about experiences you can't encounter.

[arandr0x]

Yes, I think all three issues won't be issues in 20 or 30 years. I fully expect my children to grow up being able to "spot" digital titles the way I do with spines, and looking at the physical books roughly the way I looked at my grandma's physical ledger-book. (Edited: Although I think you misunderstood me on 3. I am willing to pay for those books, provided the price is sustainable considering the quantity I am consuming, and they are not in English, which may qualify what I meant when I say they largely don't exist digitally currently.)

I meant I can classify 200 books as interesting or not in a minute, obviously not find 200 interesting ones. It takes me 15 minutes to find 4 or 5 books I actually want to read.

One unfortunate side effects of books moving to digital (although, to be clear, books moving to digital is not remotely a bad thing in itself) is that they are getting longer. There is fewer and fewer pressure on authors to limit the length of newer books that are unproven, with the result that people who don't know how to speed read are seeing reading novels as more and more of a daunting thing, which I think is sad.