drop in the bath
@John Chadwick
I'm not convinced of the argument there - you could drop your kindle in the bath, but you'd buy a new one with the insurance money, resync and carry on where you left off.
Besides, there's no reason why a kindle-like device couldn't be made more waterproof than a book. Why, it could even incorprate a flotation device :-)
I'm more put off by the DRM/sharing side - I like to lend my books to people, but how can I do that with an ebook, legally? I suppose I could lend someone the ebook reader itself..
I'm not really for ebooks and readers myself, but I think they have their place.