[e12e]

> An e-book is going to heavily (and negatively) impact the sales figures for the print book.

Well, if the price is the same, that hardly matters? Or are you implying unpaid/illicit downloads will be worse with a legal digital version as opposed to an illicitly scanned copy?

After buying an e-reader I can't defend buying print books from an environmental standpoint - it may be a sunk cost/resources fallacy - but with all the infrastructure for digital production, distribution and reading in place - print copies are a strict waste of resources.

[gunapologist99]

You can read a print book without wasting electricity every time you open it and the toxic materials used to produce a e-reader.

Reading print is still a much more enjoyable experience (except in the tub -- a waterproof Kindle is still great and lightweight for that!), especially with the slow speed of e-ink screens.

I can't defend ebooks compared to the reading, sharing, and the later selling at a used book store my cast-off print books.

I've even gotten O'Reilly books from a decade ago at used book stores that are great to read and look great on my shelf, and I love finding some old novel by some forgotten author instead of whatever the latest Amazon bestseller is.

And I don't have to worry about the Orwellian deletion of my books from my e-reader: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18am...

[konart]

>You can read a print book without wasting electricity

You don't 'waste' electricity, you waste your money. And in many places electricity is (much) cheaper than (good) paper.

>toxic materials used to produce a e-reader.

Surely you realise that different chemicals are used during paper production too? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfide and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide for example. And this depends on paper type too.

>Reading print is still a much more enjoyable experience

And this is entirely subjective.

>I can't defend ebooks compared to the reading, sharing, and the later selling

While I 100% agree with selling option, sharing is at least as easy with epub. Unless we are talking about a book from Amazon or something. In most cases you can just send a file over your preferred messenger.

[Volundr]

I'm dubious the environmental difference is that much. 1 e-reader vs how many thousands of books? It's seems to me the e-reader is a one and done cost, but each book comes with it's own trees cut down for the paper, shipping, etc.

As for the deletion I'm with you. That's why I always buy DRM free, or promptly crack anything I buy.

[DennisP]

Nevertheless, many people like ebooks, for a variety of reasons. And I'll put the marginal environmental cost of another book on my reader, against the cost of producing and shipping a physical book, and then turning on a lamp to read it at night anyway.

[pjmlp]

There is the mass murder question of trees for books that never get sold and are eventually thrown into a dump, alongside the chemicals used in the publishing process.

[e12e]

> You can read a print book without wasting electricity every time you open it

This is generally true for ebooks as well, as I only have electric heating. Both probably require more electricity for lighting anyway.

> and the toxic materials used to produce a e-reader.

I assume an ebook reader uses more resources to produce than a book, but 1) I already have a reader, and 2) I have for example e-books I inherited from my dad - that's approximately a thousand books. Even just moving them into my apartment would require non-trivial resources.

> Reading print is still a much more enjoyable experience

I don't really agree. Especially not for technical books.

> I can't defend ebooks compared to the reading, sharing, and the later selling at a used book store my cast-off print books.

Agree that the Kindle/Amazon drm/marketplace is pretty bad. Not all books have draconic drm, though - and in such cases it's much easier to share a book with a friend that has moved over seas for example.

> I've even gotten O'Reilly books from a decade ago at used book stores that are great to read and look great on my shelf,

Sure, but in the event this is a problem - it's also a drm problem, not a problem inherent to ebooks.

As for books about "programing language x version y, with best practices as of year z" - I fully expect them to be mostly outdated after 5 to 10 years - maybe replaced by a new version.

> and I love finding some old novel by some forgotten author instead of whatever the latest Amazon bestseller is.

I've never discovered books from the AZ bestseller lists, but I've bought a few classics.

There are always going to be books that are hard to get - like the excellent:

Howard McCord book: "The Man Who Walked to The Moon" which was self-published if I'm not mistaken. I found it in a thrift store in Berlin. As it happens, it's now available for the Kindle:

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Walked-Moon-Novella/dp/092970...

> And I don't have to worry about the Orwellian deletion of my books from my e-reader

Again - a market/drm problem (and a real one for sure).

I really do hope we will see more diversity in ebook sales, sharing, re-sale and lending.