• So my early enthusiasm is waning. The IP protections seem like a dealbreaker. I can't read pdfs? I have to pay to aggregate blogs? Amazon is fairly clearly trying to follow the iPod model, where your technology gives you such an early lead, that you can lock up all your content and nobody's the wiser. But even the iPod only locks up iTunes content -- it doesn't try to keep me from playing music I already have, or that a friend gave me, or that I downloaded off the net. Kindle does.
• That said, if Amazon really has figured out the technology, someone else will match the product without the locks. Or Amazon will decide to open the Kindle in order to better corner the market. If e-book readers really are the future, just as iPods were, the important thing is that someone kicks off our brave new world. The Kindle may do that, even as its many locks and constraints open the market for a successor.
• If the Kindle does work, it will make much more of a difference for non-fiction readers than fiction lovers. I don't think the advantage is in size -- a book really isn't that big. It's in information delivery. I really want some technology that allows me to clip parts of books, make annotations I can e-ail to myself, and better organize the information I glean from reading. Simply looking over words is a tremendously inefficient way to absorb knowledge, and it's long past time someone came up with a product that helps correct for my brain's sieve-like nature and general failings.
• Isaac Butler makes a fair point here, offering the Hayekian case for print:
Why will it be unsatisfying? Because it's not a book. I don't mean to be conservative here, but the simple fact of the matter is that there's something about books that just works. It's not that explainable, so it's hard to try to phrase it as a counterargument, but here goes...the book is one of humankind's perfect inventions... like bread, or the wheel (or, I'd argue, cheese). You might be able to improve on its design but you can't fundamentally change the thing. It's perfect as is. It's survived as a human invention for a truly shocking amount of time. As sentimental as this sounds, I just don't think that many people really want to cuddle up with their electronic reader and delve into the latest from Henning Mankell.
