I have 4 library bookshelves (7 foot tall ones). And they're packed with books. *Bought* books.
But dealing with more current "online books" are a fraud. They 'sell' these books, but in actuality they're rentals due to DRM. I cant read them on Linux; I cant sell them; I cant read them on my phone; I can't print past their arbitrary print limits.
I have none of the same rights of these physical books.
So, yeah, I'll pirate.
So much effort spent creating DRM systems that try to destroy the natural advantages of ebooks over paper books.
Ebooks and the internet could have ushered in a golden age of worldwide digital libraries unlimited by the location or quantity of physical paper books.
The current copyright and technical control regime may be good for some publishers and authors, but at what cost in terms of lost value to humanity as a whole?
[0] based on their actions it sure seems like this is the case.
You know that paper producers own land where they farm trees for pulp, right?
It's not like they're making deserts out there randomly chopping down trees.
They do make deserts out of forests when they clearcut. A lot of land is owned by others (governments, native tribes) and permits are used to extract the pulp
Because the cost of manufacturing a hardware eReader and keeping it charged doesn't have a corresponding carbon footprint.
"Maybe buy the author a coffee if you ever run into them"
Because that'll keep them solvent.
As others have said, you seem shockingly unaware that trees are GROWN specifically for making paper.
NO ONE is cutting down premium "old growth" forests to make paper..
Nice "virtue signal" on your part, too bad you did not spend 5 mins to learn where paper comes from first.
The physical copy exists to be a conversation piece on a shelf, to loan out, talk to friends about, not mind losing to a family member who's visiting, etc.
The digital copy exists to mark up, index, search, highlight, learn from, etc. If it's not on LibGen I'll buy it on Kobo and strip it in to my library using Obok DeDRM and an old ePaper reader I wouldn't want to use otherwise, and then buy a physical copy of it's something I'd want to share.
So often the books I loan out are "clean" and don't even have a wrinkle in the spine but sometimes I'll go through and dog-ear important passages or pencil-line particular parts. I've had friends assume I hadn't actually read the book until we pull out koreader and go over my highlights.