Amazon announced that it now sells more electronic books than actual books. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, conservationists may be happy that fewer trees will be cut down for paper. On the other hand, the entire book publishing world -- including companies that make products that go into books, warehouse personnel, delivery personnel, book store employees -- might look on this with some trepedation. Their industry could be affected by this development.
Of course, Amazon sells things for their book reader, so, like Apple, if you buy into their electronic books, you buy into their system of distributon. If you go with Barnes & Noble, you're buying into their system, etc. Just like Apple and their iTunes ecosystem, you are committing yourself, not only to a device, but to all the distribution and other infrastructure that goes with it. And what if that book you desperately want to read isn't published for the name your device here? Do you go out and by the other device and all that it implies to read that one book?
We'll see. . .
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