a

They do this for some packages in the UK, but not all. I had one package that came by courier and they didn't even leave a note saying that they'd failed the delivery, then did this twice again before sending the package back to amazon. They then sent it properly through the post and I got it straight away. I won't buy from anyone that uses these awful courier companies now because it's basically a waste of my time.

They did much the same in the UK

Most of the deliveries ended up back with Royal Mail after about a year during which I couldn't order anything. Just have to keep complaining and hope the rash cost saving hits their bottom line as much as you think it should

Too much of the stock market only thinks of the short term

The answer unfortunately is the short term nature of most of the stock market. After the analysts had put out their report / guess on the performance of amazon a bunch of stock managers will have looked at the price of the shares versus the expected earnings, thought that looks cheap and bought stock. When amazon announced it's earnings were less than the prediction same stock managers would see the price / earnings ratio was lower and sold the stock. Hence the drop is stock price as it is sold off.

Odd behaviour when the best stock market investor, Warren Buffett, made his billions largely by taking a long term view (10, 20+ years). Too many bankers chasing a short term profit, where have we heard that before?

Good point

In practice the casino that is the stock market creates a situation where the bookmakers (read Invesment Brokerages) need to "make a book" on short term share price movements (the next 3 - 6 months) and for that they need information about "form". A great deal of that "information" is based on the tealeaf readers guesses about the next 3 - 6 months with the results that we see. WB whom you mention evaluates the companies longterm strengths and potential and invests accordingly. He would no doubt ticket Amazon shares as a buy opportunity now at a 15% discount? I fear that the stockmarkets always were casinos whatever their apologists might claim. Indeed in the late eighteenth century when the modern SMs started to develop they were regarded with a great deal of suspision for exactly that reason.

Investors listen too much to analysts

How often do analysts get it right? They are a waste of space yet they influence investors and hence the share price.

They always put spin on their predictions after the event.

My bookshelf is a testament to my agreement with you.

I also don't want to screw around with the idea that the batteries for these bloody things may not be available in future, forcing me to bin the device (and, conveniently, all the media I have purchased for it). Or the screen may get cracked and a replacement part may be unavailable in a decade. Et cetera.

If you find that hard to believe, try finding, say, a replacement screen display for a monitor you bought ten years ago. Can't find a CRT tube?! My goodness, what's the world come to? Maybe you would like to try and find a replacement VCR? They were popular up until about 2000, but you're unlikely to find spares for them now. It's not implausible to predict that components for these devices will simply not be available in a couple of decades - and why should they be? It's entirely in the manufacturer's and copyright owners' interests to make you buy everything again!

Nobody - not Apple, Barnes & Noble nor Amazon, have mentioned what the long-term support policy is for these readers. I'm fairly willing to bet that once your two-year warranty has expired, so do your books - if your device goes kaput. I would very much like to wager that any books you purchase will not be readable in 20 years, for one reason or another, and that is why I will continue to steer clear of these e-readers.

At least if I manage to accidentally tear a page out of one of my books, I can repair it with fairly low-cost tools - and, more importantly, only two sides of paper are affected: I can read the rest without difficulty. If I accidentally dunk a book in water, I can dry it out (and only one book is affected.) I would not like to place bets on the success rate of fixing an e-reader with any of the household tools I have at my disposal.

All this has nothing to do with the fact that I simply don't trust the likes of Amazon etc. to respect the contract of sale. When Amazon pulled 1984 (how ironic was that?) - it sent a very clear message: You do not buy content, ever. You rent it, until we tell you we're pulling the content from your device. Sorry, Amazon, B&N, Apple, etc: I'm simply not that stupid.

You're missing crucial data here

«I'm fairly willing to bet that once your two-year warranty has expired, so do your books - if your device goes kaput.»

I don't know about B&N, but Kindle books can be stored on your computer, your Kindle (if you have one), and Amazon's cloud. Did you accidentally delete one of your Kindle books? Pull it back down again, no charge. Same deal if you have a Kindle & it gets stolen or broken.

Apple's iBooks are at least on your (iTunes-based) computer as well as your iPad/iPhone. I'm not sure what their policy (or B&N's) is about re-downloading, but I wouldn't be surprised to find it similar to Amazon's.

Dead-tree books have advantages, to be sure — I always buy dead-tree versions of field guides for their color illustrations, for example — but you're glossing over some of their disadvantages: once you get past drying them out or taping torn pages, the only answer is to buy a new one. They can't be replaced for free if stolen/destroyed, they can't be updated. Then there's that whole storage thing… if you have 1500 ebooks and 1500 dead-tree books, and you have to suddenly evacuate your premises, you can grab one smallish gadget and have your entire library with you.

The best way to ensure longevity of ebooks is to buy DRM-free books and convert them to newer formats as needed. It's harder to kill-switch a non-DRM ebook too — 'cause it isn't necessarily on the device in question.