I still vacillate greatly on the issue of eBooks.

My concern has less (and less) to do with the experience of reading. I greatly enjoy reading on my Kindle DX or iPad or iPhone or my netbook or most anything.

I’m much more concerned about the long-term ramifications of DRM and content-lock-down (or editing) by corporations looking to monetize the reading experience even further.

Great post on the LibraryThing blog hashing out the same concerns…

Ebooks get better, print not. | Off-topic | LibraryThing: “But I question how publishers and authors will respond when piracy assumes music-industry levels, and then worse. One solution would be a return to the physical. Another would be the imposition of ever harsher DRM. But the most likely result is that the book industry can’t solve the problem, and we will gradually lose the ‘middle’ of the author community–the majority of authors who who aren’t Steven King (who could live on non-book revenue), but aren’t doing it just for the fun either.”

I feel that we’re at a major fork in the road. Of course eBooks will continue to gain popularity and adoption in this decade and will shortly outpace “real” books as the preferred mode of reading by the public (and in American schools).

However, I hope we don’t trade in rights for ease.