Personally I already think ewaste is out of control, imo this sounds like a recipe for disaster.
E-readers don't need to become cheaper, ebooks do, and at the moment there's still a huge gap between "pirated" or "borrowed from the library" and "bought". That, plus DRM and lock-in makes people think twice about buying ebooks.
I had to find a source, but [0] shows that physical books out-sell ebooks by a huge margin still. I think this chart would only change if ebooks are as readily available for cheap as streaming music.
Come to think of it, I remember now; during that time, tablets also quickly became popular and were the direct competitor to e-readers. The low-cost e-readers were often regular tablets with LCD screens, since both then and now, e-paper is expensive. But you can buy a tablet for cheap.
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/24709/e-book-and-printed-book...
In contrast, i know people who have went through many kindles in this time and spent a small fortune on them.
Are you comparing it to the Kindle ereaders or their tablets? Standard (non-tablet) Kindles such as the Paperwhite series are like you describe (though they cost more than $100 and come with all of the lockin issues).
Consider the iPod Classic: the shiny back scratched incredibly easily, and after a few years it looked better than it did new (like an old leather wallet, or well worn jeans).
This. Oh, so much this. I have hated every phone after my OG iPhone SE so much because of this lunacy in design. It's ridiculous that we can't use our phones one-handed.
I know-- people don't want small phones. >sigh< I wonder if we're getting to the point that most phone users have never actually used a phone with a screen they can reach across with one hand.
Re: thumb - I have found some gesture to pull the screen down halfway so you can reach the 'top' part without moving your hand. It's close to OK, and it's almost second nature now, but still annoying.
That said, I too miss long time daily use Things. I haven't worn a physical wallet in years, it's some cards in my (tatty) phone case. The phone case doesn't age gracefully either, it's pleather, fabric, cardboard and some magnets. I suspect the only thing I really own (but rarely use) that would age like that is a leather shoulder bag.
> I like the concept of wearing in rather than wearing out. You’d like to create something where the emotional relationship is more satisfying over time. You may not worry about it or think about it very much, and people don’t have to have a strong love relationship with their things, but they should grow a little more fond of them over time.
That was an idea he applied to the Grid Compass, which was an early laptop with a black-painted magnesium chassis, which you can imagine would patina quite nicely.
Both our Kindle third-gen devices are still chugging along happily. We only use them for reading outside - indoors, we both use tablets. But in sunlight, you need that e-Ink.
So there never was an £8 reader, it was more likely a £30+ reader that's cost was hidden in the mobile contract or the hopes of you using their book store as it sounds from the wiki that it was a proprietary format
> The internal format seems to be basically uncompressed Bitmaps of 3 or 4 bits per pixel. Font size can be specified in the source book but not changed after the transfer.
If you could make an e-reader for £8 presumably including profit in that price so it doesn't have to be subsidized by vendor lock in book stores or mobile contracts you wouldn't want to use it. The screen would be underwhelming, the plastic creaky, file transfer slow and possibly wired only and the processor slow. It would be ewaste before it's even off the production line.
There is nothing wrong with spending money on nice quality versions of things aligned with your tech ideology, and if you do there will be more things like that in the world. Cheapo disposable tech is actually bad because it all ends up having to be subsidized by exploitative practices like data selling or ads to actually profit from it.
Getting an old but useable ereader for £20 or less is very doable right now - plus you can get the Nook simple touch to run (very old) Android.
I sure did adore the old black n white Nooks, which I could load as I pleased with any file of my choice, often converting text and PDFs to ebook with Calibre.
but why? is it because of patents? Shouldn't this technology get cheaper with time?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
Supposedly, a core patent for the technology expired a year ago:
https://old.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1e3icaz/any_company_d...
It's probably too soon to easily tell whether that's enough to make e-ink screens cheaper and more available.
There are many tens of millions of e-Ink store shelf-edge price labels around, for example, and they're a cheap commodity item.
What’s the specific harm that you are worried about?
(or more likely find one lying in the streets somewhere)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N65DpT2nqEI
Though the UK did just recently ban some of the worst offenders https://www.gov.uk/government/news/single-use-vapes-banned-f...
In vapes it’s almost certain, as other battery types just don’t work very well for this application. Also, many of these come rechargeable now (but not refillable).
In “emergency chargers”, you could in theory use something different but usually it’s lithium too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lflk6iY56w