Why printed books will never die

Josh Catone is almost right when he writes Why Printed Books Will Never Die. Although the pedant in me has an issue with the word never given that, thanks to entropy, the universe will one day degrade into a particle stew.

For now I’ll give Catone poetic licence.

He says:

Ebooks are not simply a better format replacing an inferior one; they offer a wholly different experience.

A good point. I’d read an ebook on a plane. I read work documents on a tablet or ebook. When reading for pleasure, I still want to see print and feel paper.

Whenever I hear people predicting the death of printed books I think back to the Roman, Greek and even earlier texts which can still be read today, then remember early electronic texts stored on 8-inch floppies or using now dead digital formats.

Some of these are already lost forever.