Adventures in e-Books

I've witnessed, over the past few years, a mounting sentiment in the publishing community that the fundamental problem about e-books is that nobody really wants to buy them. Yes, we worry about security, we bemoan the unresolved format wars, and we fantasize about e-ink and reflective surface technologies, but secretly we're anxious about what the consumer wants. If this were not the case, then wouldn't we all just be wasting our time? The shuttering of Contentville on September 28, accompanied by an announcement from Steve Brill that, "my idea for Contentville just didn't work," would seem to suggest that the demand is just not there.