Digital books wear out faster than physical books

Post by obsrvatlarge » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 5:57 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #132

midoridensha wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've never seen a paperback made in the 1960s-1990s? The paper is brittle and the pages are literally falling apart. You can't read paper where pieces of it have fallen off and disintegrated.

I have many paperbacks from the 1950s to the present day. Some of the really old ones are a little yellow around the edges, but brittle and falling apart? Never. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Post by obsrvatlarge » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 5:59 AM UTC

krmboya wrote: post #188

sorwin wrote: post #178

Terrible example, digital media can last far longer, under the same circumstances. Have a USB drive Hard Drive, or USB? Plug them in 10 to 15 years later, chances are, they will have far less damage than a book in all those years. It's an unfair comparison.

- Assuming the hardware does not change - Assuming the software does not change - Assuming the usb device is stored securely and lightly used. Bit rot is real

Post by t-writescode » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 6:12 AM UTC

shakna wrote: post #186

Turing_Machine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also digital formats are constantly evolving and backwards compatibility for old formats is removed. While that was certainly true at one time, Unicode text, HTML, XML, and ZIP files aren't going anywhere (or there'll be a collapse of society so thorough that print books are unlikely to survive, either). EPUB books are basically XHTML and XML zipped up along with any external assets (e.g., images). There are nuance…

HTML isn't immune from broken backwards compatibility. The frame element has been completely removed, the hgroup element is gone, and so is the dir element. acronym is deprecated in favour of abbr. isindex, plaintext, xmp, and listing are all dead. The attributes border, clear, background and bgcolor have all been removed by HTML, and shifted to be CSS' responsibility instead. Just moving between EPUB 2 and EPUB 3, y…

Post by otabdeveloper4 » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 6:37 AM UTC

armchairhacker wrote: post #5

Physical books wear out in decades to centuries, computers break in years to decades. Also digital formats are constantly evolving and backwards compatibility for old formats is removed. Even without publisher/legal issues it's clear that preservation of digital media for even the next 10 years , and especially for the next 100 or 1000, is at risk. But I really wonder why is there no other major service like the Inte…

Post by chmod775 » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 7:04 AM UTC

marosgrego wrote: post #66

systemicdanna wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a non-DRM format + an e-reader combo that allows for bookmarks, text selection, dictionary search? Ideally I would prefer to keep my Kindle but would really love to buy and own non-DRM books.

Kobo reader with Plato installed