This is not one of those rants about missing the texture, touch,
colors, whatever of paper contrasted with the sterility of reading on a
tablet. No, the real abomination of ebooks is often overlooked: Some are
so ingrained in the product itself that they are hiding in plain sight,
while others are well concealed beneath layers of commerce and
government.
The real problem with ebooks is that they’re more “e” than book, so
an entirely different set of rules govern what someone — from an
individual to a library — can and can’t do with them compared to
physical books, especially when it comes to pricing.
The collusion
of large ebook distributors in pricing has been a public issue for a
while, but we need to talk more about how they are priced differently to
consumers and to libraries. That’s how ebooks contribute to the ever-growing divide between the literary haves and have-nots.
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