I tend to buy books. As Heather pointed out on Flickr, I could save lots of money by checking books out from the library. I don’t for one big reason. I am lazy. Most of my purchases fall within a sweet spot of wanting to read more about something because I heard about it on the radio, saw a television episode on a topic, read something in another book, or talked to someone about it. My memory is poor so I only buy a book if I happen to hit the bookstore prior to forgetting. For most of these that means Amazon. To get a book from a library would be mean remembering to go there AND the book I wanted which is unlikely.

However, books sit on my shelf for sometimes years before I get around to reading them. I also tend to read several at a time which slows my pace on any particular book to about 250 pages a month unless I devote more time to it.

Netflix works similarly for me. I add things to the queue and maybe eventually get around to getting the disk. I’ll watch a disk a week maybe. Netflix’s Watch Instantly is much better for me as I can pick whatever I want off the list and see it then. Even then I might watch half and watch the rest later. I’m watching 3x more with the Watch Instantly model than I did off the DVD model.

While I would like an eBook Reader, I don’t find the purchase model compelling.  Take the Netflix concepts of:

• A watch instantly queue (more a list of everything I am interested in watching)
• When I am ready to read it downloads to my device.
• When I am finished, I no longer have access.
• Do not limit me to one out at a time.
• A monthly charge for the privilege of all of the above.

With that kind of model, I would be willing to buy a Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or whatever for anytime access to an enormous library of books. They could even charge me $10-15 depending on how many I can have out a time.