The be fair the parent said "almost." I see this more as a backup of the physical book. Other than search, the experience of physical books is superior, I think, for most people for most uses. You can come up with counterexamples like certain aspects of studying textbooks, etc., but I think this is true in general.
First, let me step on my own foot for the sake of accuracy: people retain information slightly better when they read paper than screens, so textbooks definitely aren't an example I'd go with. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8715975/
That said, I can come up with far more than a few counterexamples for why ebooks are good, besides combustability:
- Paper books are dense. This adds difficulty to moving and maintaining large collections.
- Paper books take up space. Bookstores and libraries must necessarily remove books to make space for new ones. With ebooks, there's basically no need to remove old ones.
- Paper books are dense and take up space, so when travelling, the reader must carefully select one or two to carry. With ebooks, I can carry my entire ebook library in my pocket.
- Paper books require more effort to duplicate. My e-library is replicated across many devices, including two different offsites. If I spill sauce on a paper book, I need to buy another copy (assuming it's still available).
- Paper books have accessibility issues. As I get older and my vision deteriorates, I will need specialized optical hardware to read small print. On my e-reader, I can just turn up the font size.
In spite of all this, I would never say that ebooks are objectively superior; both are good. I just take issue with all of the people who assume that physical books are so obviously inherently superior, without ever saying why. (See your own post for example.)
Can most people get physical books? Ebooks are made freely accessible by projects like Anna's Archive. An ebook can be more easily used as a printing source, can be more easily cited in research, and can be better preserved.
The one advantage of physical books is the reading experience itself, but even that is debatable. A Kindle lets you adjust brightness, change fonts—there are fonts that help dyslexic people, for example—and it's lighter than books. Did I mention dark mode?
