On a hard drive or tape system?<p>On a reader - if you&#x27;re counting the cost of electricity, let&#x27;s count the cost of shipping entire forests of paper around the world, first to paper mills, then to print factories, then to bookshops and libraries.<p>And the cost of travel to and from a lending library for every reader.<p>And why not also include the cost of lighting to read the book? (I can read my Kobo in the dark because it has a very low energy backlight. My eyes don&#x27;t work so well with the lights off, so I&#x27;ve never been able to do that with paper.)<p>I wonder how many people here understand that <i>giant warehouses</i> full of overstocked print are regularly shipped back from stores and pulped. Does everyone understand how much space and weight a million copies of a failed bestseller takes up? Does everyone know that paper books are always sold sale-or-return, so if they don&#x27;t go out the front door they go out the back door onto a truck, with the covers stripped so they can&#x27;t be resold?<p>The original article is <i>factually wrong</i> in significant ways.<p>Not all ebooks are sold by Amazon, not all ebooks have DRM, and not all ebooks that start with DRM continue to have DRM.<p>At this point, arguing against digital publishing because Amazon is like arguing against the printing press because the medieval Catholic church was fond of censorship and burning.