A Brief History of the eReader — Plus the Voices Who Pushed Back

If the printed book is a 500-year-old miracle, the eReader is its restless younger cousin—always updating, always syncing, always one tap from a dictionary. The idea goes back farther than the Kindle. In 1971, Michael Hart launched Project Gutenberg, seeding the first digital library. Through the ’90s, hardware makers flirted with the concept: Sony’s Data Discman, the Rocket eBook and SoftBook (both 1998), and the Franklin eBookMan (1999) all tried to make screens feel bookish. The game-changer, though, was electronic ink. Sony’s Librie (2004) and the Sony Reader PRS-500 (2006) proved E Ink could mimic paper’s calm. Then, in 2007, Amazon’s Kindle fused E Ink with a massive store and one-click buying. Barnes & Noble’s Nook followed (2009), Kobo launched (2010), and the iPad (2010) turned tablets into multi-format reading machines.

The dissenters—and what they said

Not everyone cheered. Long before Kindles, essayist Sven Birkerts warned in The Gutenberg Elegies (1994) that screens would erode the deep, meditative habits fostered by print. After eReaders arrived, cultural critics amplified the worry. Nicholas Carr, in The Shallows (2010), argued that digital reading environments encourage skimming and distraction, making it harder to sustain attention. Novelist Jonathan Franzen publicly defended paper’s permanence around 2012, suggesting that serious readers would keep preferring a durable, unchangeable object. Ray Bradbury was blunter; he dismissed eBooks and the wired world as faddish and unsatisfying. Italian scholar Umberto Eco offered the most quotable line: “The book is like the spoon, scissors, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved.” And author Sherman Alexie, in the Kindle’s early days, called the device “elitist” before later softening and releasing digital editions.

Libraries and authors raised practical critiques, too. The infamous 2009 incident in which Amazon remotely deleted certain copies of Orwell’s 1984 became a symbol of the fragility—and centralised control—baked into DRM-protected eBooks. Librarians protested metered licensing, embargoes, and shifting terms that made it harder (and often costlier) to lend digital titles than paper ones. Agents and publishers battled over pricing and platform power through the 2010s, with high-profile disputes underscoring anxiety about a single retailer dominating discovery and sales.

What the numbers say: eBooks vs paperbacks

The boom years were real. In the early–mid 2010s, US trade-book data (e.g., AAP StatShot reports) generally showed eBooks peaking around one-fifth of revenue—a remarkable share for a format that barely existed a few years prior. After that peak, eBook revenue slid into the low-teens percentage by the late 2010s, then ticked upward during the 2020 lockdown reading surge before settling back into the teens. Paperbacks, by contrast, have been the workhorse of print: in many recent years they alone accounted for roughly one-third to two-fifths of US trade revenue, comfortably outpacing eBooks on both revenue and units. The UK shows a similar arc: eBook enthusiasm, a plateau, and a resilient resurgence of print—especially paperbacks. In short: eBooks became a durable slice of the market, but paperbacks remained king.

The device landscape—and who uses what

E Ink readers (Kindle, Kobo, Nook). These are purpose-built, greyscale (with growing but still niche colour options), and easy on the eyes for long sessions. Front-lighting, week-long battery life, and distraction-free design make them catnip for heavy readers. Within this category, Amazon’s Kindle family dominates in many markets, with Kobo strong in Canada and parts of Europe, and Nook maintaining a loyal US base.

Tablets (iPad, Android) and phones. The most prevalent way people read eBooks isn’t a dedicated device at all—it’s the phone in their pocket, followed by tablets. Bright, high-refresh colour screens are ideal for illustrated books, comics, magazines, and multitasking. Kindle, Apple Books, Google Play Books, and Kobo apps mean your library follows you everywhere.

Hybrid and large-format E Ink. Bigger, note-friendly E Ink devices (reMarkable, Kindle Scribe, Kobo Elipsa, Onyx Boox) blur the line between eReader and notebook, targeting students, editors, and professionals. Colour E Ink (Kaleido, Gallery) continues to improve, but it remains a niche compared to LCD/OLED for vivid graphics.

So what’s most common? In simple terms: phones and tablets account for the majority of casual eBook reading because they’re ubiquitous. Dedicated E Ink readers anchor the power-reader segment and library-borrowing crowd. Hybrid E Ink note-takers are a fast-growing but still small slice.

The verdict: coexistence, not replacement

The prophecy that eBooks would “kill” print didn’t pan out. Instead, formats sorted themselves by job: E Ink for long-form, eye-friendly immersion; phones and tablets for convenience, colour, and comics; paperbacks for affordability, tangibility, and gifting. The dissenters weren’t entirely wrong—business models, attention, and access norms did change—but readers proved adaptable. Today, the best “reader” is plural: a paperback on the nightstand, an e-ink device for the commute, and an app for the supermarket queue. The story of the eReader isn’t about overthrowing the book. It’s about widening the ways we read.