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124 comments
  • 🏴‍☠️

    If you're spending money on a book you may as well get a physical one.

  • I buy physical usually.

    I feel, i tend to abandon ebooks a little more often. Somehow i feel more committed to actually read most of my ever growing stack of books someday.

    Ebook-reader are great nonetheless.

  • Ebooks. Can store more on a reading tablet, easier to transport most of the time, sometimes lighter than physical books, hold my spot easily where I left off, can read in darker places, easier to store. Still have physical but liking digital more. Use an eink display tablet. Buy the books then download epubs or PDFs.

  • digital, I don't mind physical but I just don't have the room where I live for a ton of books.

  • I work at a computer and find it easier to continue using a screen for reading

    However I do also purchase some paper books for when wanting to disconnect for a while

    • That's funny I also work at a computer but usually can't wait to get away from it at the end of the day.

      I will say that monitors and eyeglasses have gotten really good at reducing eye strain from reading on a monitor. I remember getting a headache as a teen from the old CRTs lol

  • Physical, Is soooo much easier to get distracted on a screen.

    I never have bought a digital book, just get the PDF/epub for free like normal people lol, and I do only really if it's not worth it/too difficult/expensive to get it or a photocopy of it physically.

  • Prefer digital because space is a factor in my house. I love the idea of physical, and I'll usually go that way for art or reference books. However paperback equivalent I'm always going digital.

    Although if I really love a book I'll always look to add it to my bookshelf at some point.

  • 7" tablet with FBReader and I download books into Calibre for it to load via OPDS. I used to pay for books, but using the Kindle app was a nightmare. Different bugs every update. It was easier to pirate. I take a look online to see if authors I like have a donation link so I can pay them directly.

    I thought I'd never stop reading physical books, but I wouldn't go back after using a tablet. I never lose my place in the book when I fall asleep, I don't need to have a light on to read, and when I wake up during the night I just flick the tablet on, read for a few minutes while barely waking up, and crash again. I could never do that before because I'd have to find my place in the book and mark it before I fell asleep again.

    Oh, and fuck Amazon.

  • E-books, because they're cheaper and I don't have enough bookshelf space. Plus I use the library for physical books.

  • When I buy books I buy physical, but sometimes digital is more practical, even with small format books I struggle to read them in public transit during my work commute, with a reader like Kindle or even with a smartphone I don't have to work about my book being damaged in a bag it someone, even without a cover a reader will say least scratch a bit, on the other hand dropping a reader is another story, the screen can easily break, book won't. Also the obvious thing is you can get ebooks instantly, physical ones have to be shipped or at least brought from the store like everything physical. Another thing is WAREZ, you can get ebooks illegally, I don't condone it but it makes the access easier, sometimes it's the only way to get a given book because it's sold out or something. But I'm one of those people who don't have a problem with ebooks, on an ebook reader I see them equal with paper ones

  • It really depends. I'm not from US, so ebooks and regular books tend to have very similar prices, no idea why. I can get a regular book for 40 bucks and the ebook will be 30. No great. So I useually pirate all Ebooks I have and if I really like it, buy a paper copy of it. I really like to collect books, so there's that. Graphic novels, on the other hand, are exclusively physical, I'll only read a few chapters to see if I like the story, in case I've never heard of it, and buy the real one

  • Digital if it's for a quick reference here and there, physical if I want to read the whole thing and enjoy it.

    • Same here. Reference, particularly sheet music and cooking recipes work fine for me digitally.

      I can sit at the computer and read social/news media for hours with no problem, but the way ebooks are displayed tires my eyes very quickly for some reason.

      While I don't have this issue with the e-ink/e-paper stuff, I've never owned one. I also appreciate that physical books are often much harder to damage and will work without electricity.

  • Recently purchased a high class ebook reader and had to return it. The display technology simply doesn't match paper yet.

    As far as the pure reading experience goes paper is better. Also less distractions and no blue light that keeps you awake late at night. Printed books take up physical space which is a negative for me.

    But digital has the advantage when it comes to working with the text: quickly being able to search for strings, copy and paste whole passages, get translations or pronunciations, reorder pages, etc. Plus all the meta data and library management.

    Libraries are in a weird space betwixt when it comes to digital versions btw. They give you a digital text but lock you into a specific app that denies the advantages of the digital format mentioned above.

    That being said stuff like blog posts, online articles, social media, etc simply doesn't exist on paper. But for anything I read for pure enjoyment like literature paper is the way to go.

    Lastly, in my experience electronic versions tend to be a bit cheaper than paperbacks but a lot less so than you expect. But a library card pays off after borrowing even a single book, so there's that 🤷‍♂️.

  • Ebooks wherever possible - except, perhaps, for reference books. I simply find the experience of reading an ebook on something like a kindle so much more pleasant than reading a print book. So much so that I really hate reading print books now.

  • Physical for some comics, mostly digital because I get most of my books from the library. A lot of libraries around the US have fantastic support for digital media.

  • I love physical books, but ebooks are so convenient. Always having a book, being able to comfortably read one handed, and being able to read in the dark after my wife goes to sleep are all things that significantly increase how often I can read.

124 comments