Edit 2025/03/11: minor grammar + format corrections.
One annoying trend in the technology age is the push for everything to be done online. This has now extended to books. Here’s why I still prefer physical copies of books even if they’re more expensive.
problematic ownership
When you buy a e-book on a platform such as Kindle, you are not buying ownership. You are buying permission to view the book on your account. And what that really mean is that you can’t loan e-books, store them, resell them, gift them, or really pass it down at all. You have no real ownership of the book that you buy.
And to be honest, I don’t see the purpose of spending money to buy access to a PDF that you can’t even download.
flaw: it’s online
One of the worst consequences of the internet age is the attempted digitization of everything. Reading books online/on a screen comes with all the distractions and annoyances that come with it being online. Eye strain, constant distractions, even the act of opening an app can be troublesome and also annoying.
All of these disadvantages would be fine in my eyes if physical books made for an uncomfortable and inefficient experience, but that’s really not true. It’s far easier to get into reading a physical book in my opinion and that’s just my experience reading. Perhaps its not a problem for people without attention spans completely brainrotted like mine.
i already spend too much time online…
To be honest, the main reason why I dislike e-books is because it already extends my horribly long screen time. I already believe that I spend too much of my time looking at a screen. I don’t need my reading time exacerbating my rapidly decreasing attention span.
I used to cope and say that e-books were completely unusable but they aren’t. Don’t take my opinion as an attack on e-book readers. To be honest, I am indifferent to the way that others read. It’s for this same reason that I’m ambivalent to a format like audiobooks as well.
i.e. it’s just something primal in my brain that rejects reading a story on a phone or kindle.
**i find e-book companies who basically gatekeep PDF files as a business model far more distasteful anyhow.
If you want to find PDFs of books (for free!), websites like Annas Archive are very valueable. This website in particular has a wealth of books from every book genre.
For what its worth, buying physical has just made reading a far more enjoyable (and doable) experience for me and if you share similar mindsets with me, I recommend doing the same.