I was just on a flight yesterday and I commented to my wife that everyone around us was reading from paper books. I have a Kindle, and it gathers dust. There are too many strikes against it.
It removes the nice aspects of a physical book which include the feeling of place and progression, the cover and design, and the smell and wear of the book. You cannot lend your book. You cannot see your book. You do not own your book.
The Kindle has the advantage of portability, but in terms of being a book, everything else is a sacrifice. IMO the Kindle benefited for a time from a cultural cache that came with being on the edge of this new technology, but that has evaporated, if not reversed somewhat.
I've been listening to Grey complain about the Kindle for months on the Hello Internet podcast. He's my kind of curmudgeon, but I can't tell which surprises me more - That he finally gave up on the Kindle, or that he took so long to do it. thanks for the share.
I love my Kindle. I have the 3rd gen I think, WiFi only with a keyboard. However, I also have a tendency to not be able to leave a bookstore, especially used bookstores, without buying something. I love bookstores and for a time I lived in a town where the only bookstore stocked mainly used romantic fiction books. I love browsing the store and finding something I've been meaning to read or something unexpected entirely. An ebook store is not the same, not even close. I read both physical books and ebooks on my Kindle. I value having both. I'm finishing up Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke and I actually prefer reading it on my Kindle because it's 800 pages with extensive footnotes. I don't want to carry that around and it's convenient having a built in dictionary. I will say though, I don't think I could read a whole book on my phone or tablet. I read books to get away from glowing screens. To comment on the blog post though, I agree with everything he says. I think I got the device when the hardware was at it's peak, though the contrast could be better like in later versions. I don't think I would like the touchscreen. Also, the typography is probably the biggest mark I have against Kindles.