The End of the World as We Know it?

[Scribble]

Like anything else it probably depends on the person.

 

[Scribble]

Also look at it this way:

People say that it's more expensive to replace a digital reader if it gets destroyed then it is to replace a D&D book if it gets destroyed.

Sure, but on my shelf I have several hundred dollars worth of gaming material. If I have a fire, or a flood and they're all ruined- suddenly the cost of one tablet seems much better.

I had my car stolen from me when I was in college. It had a bunch of gaming stuff in it, including a few things that I was unable to replace. I WISH it had been cloud based.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

There are all kinds of niche advantages to different media that don't mean squat to practically anyone, until they happen to matter:

1. You lose power for a week, like major parts of Alabama did when we had 160+ tornados in one day. My family spent a lot of time reading, and we personally weren't even hit very hard. We got power back within 24 hours--but the infrastructure was such that there were no phones, internet, and so on for several days. We even played board games! Physical media that is completely local looks pretty nice.

2. OTOH, I've got a bunch of stuff in storage, including hundreds of books in boxes. Say someone steals it, or it burns down. Getting the physical book back would be the least of my problems. Heck, half of them, I probably wouldn't even miss, since I've done without them for 3+ years. When I go to file that insurance claim, it is going to be ... not ... fun. I don't have a list of titles, never mind wear and tear. With online stuff, even if you lost the contents, you've probably at least got an index of what you are supposed to have.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Never put all your eggs in one basket." Great advice, and quite ancient.

Sure, there are all kinds of ways I could lose my vast collection of RPG- and other- books. Fire's a classic. And I live in Tornado Alley.

Of course, a tablet is just as vulnerable to both, so that's a wash.

One thing I'm extremely unlikely to do, though, is leave my entire collection of RPGs- and other- books unattended on a table at Starbucks for just long enough for someone to walk off with all of them.

Yes, I know that scenario doesn't apply to stuff that's kept in a cloud. However, I'm not 100% sold on the security of cloud systems just yet.

 

[Grabuto138]

Again I will say give me a source that says the numbers.

I have seen a number of credible sources that say otherwise- that there isn't a huge savings between the two forms of media.

You are a guy on the internet that keeps basically saying trust me I know stuff.


P.S. Also from Wired, but in April of 2009:

"For publishers, the majority of a book’s costs is not in the printing or shipping, says Savikas. It’s in sales, marketing, product development and editorial. "Its more about the fixed costs," he says."

Profits happen on the margin. Small reductions in cost increase the profit significantly.

 

[Grabuto138]

Depends on the user. I replaced the hard drive once and LCD twice, in the last year, for the same user. Also did 3 virus removals, one of which required O/S reload. I see her notebook again, on a co-worker's desk right now, for a main board replacement. The bottom plate of the notebook looks like it's been cooked. Literally.

I generally see the same client, 3 or 4 times a year, for something. Call it 0.5 times (on average) for some hardware related issue. My group oversees roughly 2500 computers.

And then there are people like me, who think that books are a sacred thing and try to take good care of them. I've never lost a book, though I've worn a few out.

I managed the communications infrastructure for a 15-site (CA to NY to FL) company for a decade. I think your experience is anomolous. Or you should reconsider your vendor. And/or your policies. Or, more likely, you are citing anomlies yourself and you have hundreds of clients who do not need that level of attention. Blame that woman you are speaking of, not the tech.

 

[Ryujin]

I managed the communications infrastructure for a 15-site (CA to NY to FL) company for a decade. I think your experience is anomolous. Or you should reconsider your vendor. And/or your policies. Or, more likely, you are citing anomlies yourself and you have hundreds of clients who do not need that level of attention. Blame that woman you are speaking of, not the tech.

Of course that one woman is an anomaly, and the equipment that we use is quite reliable. I'm simply trying to illustrate that the clients I see, I see on a fairly regular basis, because some people simply do not have a proper respect for equipment or do not understand how it should be cared for. It doesn't matter how many times they're 'taught a lesson', because they refuse to learn from it. There are a fair number of such people and they are the reason that 'total care' warranties exist.