I can't upvote you enough :)<p>The calculus works for me, as well, with a twist. I place very little <i>intrinsic</i> value on the paper book, myself, other than as a delivery mechanism. As you point out, however, since I can resell it, the market places non-zero value on some instances of paper books[1].<p>Since the value, for me, is entirely in the convenience of delivery, hardback books, by their bulkier, heavier nature, have less value than mass market paperbacks. I even wrinkle my nose at "trade" paperbacks[2]. The size of the current crop of e-readers fail to be no larger than a mass market paperback, even the silly extra-tall ones.<p>An electronic copy, to me, does have <i>some</i> intrinsic value in that it's searchable, but that's primarily interesting for the bulky tech reference titles you allude to.<p>Everything else is delivery. I'm only willing to pay the full $8 price when I'm desperate, having nothing with me to read, but a local bookstore having something I know I'd buy eventually anyway. It's something I try to avoid by thinking ahead. Otherwise, for a brand new book, the Costco $6ish is my limit, and that's typically only for the more popular releases. Otherwise, it's $2-$5 at the used bookstore or online.<p>In contrast, perhaps since I'm not an avid game-player, or, perhaps because I read for pleasure 2-3 slower than I could, I find the price per enjoyment-hour to be one that makes some sense. This leads to a desire for a subscription model, since, after all, I can only read one book at a time. It would allow me to try out a writer without forking over my time <i>and</i> the cost of a whole book. Moreover, I'd be happy to pay several times as much for a 1k+ page Pynchon tome as for a pulpy novella or something in between[3].<p>If such a system were to pay royalties based on usage, I would expect it to encourage writing that's a balance between being so light as to be skimmable and so involved as to be inaccessible. I believe this to be a desirable consequence, though I recognize the danger in, if I may abuse the term, engineering regression toward the mean.<p>[1] This is on the order of $1 per item, in trade, at my local used bookstore. It's often $0.<p>[2] though some can mostly fit in a pant pocket, especially the Canadian Costco cargo pants I favor<p>[3] all of which I enjoy, but I can't fathom paying full price for 150 pages consumable in one sitting.