E-books, WiFi and $150 oil: E could benefit from higher p-book prices—and help gouge-hit rural Mississippi

June 9th, 2008

E-books, WiFi and $150 oil: E could benefit from higher p-book prices—and help gouge-hit rural Mississippi

$150-$200 oil prices could boost the cost of goods of all kinds, including, some worry, books—not just materials and manufacturing costs but also distribution ones.

With family budgets so crimped, oil gouges might also hurt the market for e-gizmos. But wait. Suppose gadget prices come down enough so that isn’t a hassle. And let’s say a TeleRead-style national digital library system could make many thousands of copyrighted titles free, while providing for fair compensation for writers and publishers. More than ever, that would help E and encourage a proliferation of dirt-cheap readers. While P won’t and shouldn’t go away, our nation’s leaders would be remiss if they didn’t encourage mass use of E.

Decline in rural library use ahead?

Already $4-a-gallon gas is wreaking havoc on low-income people in rural in Mississippi and elsewhere in the American South, according to the New York Times, and some parents are quitting jobs because they can’t afford 20 mile drives to work in battered old pickup tracks getting eight-mile-per-gallons. Now consider. Just how often will kids in remote locations get to libraries, beyond the pathetic ones they might encounter at school? Not that Mississippi public libraries are funded at a Beverly Hills level.

Of course, affordable long-range wireless could help bring wireless to rural dwellers. Let’s hope that Google, Microsoft and the others prevail against idiot-box advocates in the frequency allocation battle. Books vs. TV. Ought to be a no brainer. But who says Washington suffers from a surfeit of brains? Maybe D.C. can show some smarts by encouraging OLPC-style technology more than it has so far. The XO-2 and the inevitable commercial knockoffs look more than a little promising as e-readers for kids in Roxie, Mississippi (shown above in CC-licensed photo from Timtimes), not just Libya, if OLPC can get its e-book software act together.