Whereas I genuinely think that everyone I know buys, owns and keep physical books. Some have only a few, some have hundreds and thousands, but all of them do.

I do live in a country comprised entirely of Oceanic and Subpolar Oceanic climate, though.

There's selection bias here; people tend to know people like themselves and people like each other. Be it people like themselves because they work together, or live near each other, or have similar hobbies, or are from the same family, or some other non-random selection bias, but however it happens, people tend to know people like themselves and people like each other. I have thousands of physical books and probably acquire a few dozen more each year; I tend to like people who like physical books, and presumably you do not.

>There's selection bias here; people tend to know people like themselves and people like each other.

And, presumably, someone who is young, mobile, and lives in a small urban apartment (and knows mostly people in the same boat) will tend to default to lugging and storing less stuff than older folks who have a roomy house. I know if I were starting out today I'd almost certainly have less of a physical footprint than I did in college and immediately afterwards.

Ha. You could almost be talking about me, as was. Moved in to this apartment 15 years ago, not long out of university. Been through a half-dozen jobs since then, ranging from less than ten minutes' walk away to literally in a foreign country (not remote working either - moved there while still paying rent on this one), and I'm starting to think that I'm going to end up buying a house purely to be able to build a proper library room for the books.

My wife and I have a collection of several hundred physical books, and while the size of our collection is unusual among our friends, nearly all of them have a collection of some size, even if it’s just in the 10-20 book range. Pretty much everyone I know has at least one category of books they prefer printed, often textbooks and cookbooks, even if they generally use ebooks. We’re in Austin, currently, so we don’t have the mold problem you mention, but I grew up in coastal Mississippi and New Orleans and never had that problem unless the books were stored out in a shed or something. Several of our physical books are ~200 years old, and while I understand that an ebook will conceivably live for that long, I am suspicious that it would remain useful, given changing devices, formats, publishers, etc.

Anecdotally I see a strong clustering. I have friends with a ton of books, and their other friends also heavily liking books and physical goods (CDs, cards etc.) in general.

My other friends tend to have basically nothing in terms of physical books, music, movies.

I’d wager it depends on how people see physical goods in general: is it an asset or a liability ? And the “minimalist” switch might become more and more attractive when people prefer to rent instead of going into debt.

I order physical books by calling my bookstore, so I can pick it up there. To me, random access time in print is superior to ebooks. I wish it was possible to flash an entire bookshelf full of epaper tomes in seconds so I can reap the best of both worlds.

This must be unique to your "tropical/subtropical humid climate" because surveys consistently show the vast majority of books bought by high school kids are print, not electronic.

In addition to data, I'd also like to offer some counter-anecdotes: I have a large collection of printed books to which I'm still regularly adding, I know many other people who do also, and I can only think of a couple of people who've told me they've stopped buying printed books and do all of their reading on the Kindle.

Not everywhere has climate-controlled homes. In most of the tropical places I've been, air conditioning is a luxury.

I don’t think you can assume that what you see necessarily reflects the industry. Independent book stores are doing well in the small market where I am (New Zealand).

I buy physical books whenever they're cheaper than the Kindle version. Publishers don't want to compete with remaindered or used physical books.

This describes zero people I know. Is this now common?

Um, I much prefer physical books.

One day, if your eyesight gets worse, you may start to love ebooks just for the ability to set the font larger.

This is the number one reason I don't buy physical books, I hate having to read super small fonts on crappy quality paper.

On the other side of that coin, sometimes when I buy a physical book I seek out a really good one because I want to own a good one. Paper that feels nice with printing done well (and in some cases smells nice - ever smell a No-starch Press book? I can pick them out of my bookcases blindfold, by the scent).

Expensive binding that will last; covers that are a pleasure just to hold. Nobody like to read super small fonts on crappy quality paper, but there's a real pleasure in seeking out and buying a really good quality book.

I've even done this with books that I've read in cheap paperbook format and enjoyed so much that I want to own one (or in some cases, more than one; usually when my search reveals something unusual - for example, when I went looking for a copy of Marisha Pessl‎'s "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" I found a hardback ARC print that came with some extra bit n' pieces - a little pack that must have been sent to a reviewer by the publisher). Sometimes the good printings sold out years before and I have to track down one second hand in perfect or near perfect condition.

I can appreciate all those things about great books. However, all of that is secondary to actually being able to read it for me. If my eyesight gets bad enough, I'll probably switch to audio books.

That does sound rough. I suspect if I ever reach the point that I cannot read my own books, I'll not do well mentally...

There's always the physical assistance of a stupidly bright light and a well shaped magnifier :)

Thank you. We care a lot about the physical form of our books. I appreciate quality and I'm pleased to see that you do, too.

I'm thinking of ways to make our books even a bit nicer. Not sure yet what that will mean but I'm still thinking on it.

Well, so far you've got the scent right, the feel of the paper is good, the colouring is good, the binding is good, and whoever is in charge of typography is doing well - the layout of code and the font changes and how specific lines are reference and so is all good. I've not yet been stung by counterfeit printings either.

Now that I think about it, is the distinctive scent actually coming from the binding? I've had a dig through my shelves and my copy of "Programming Linux Games" from 2001 does still carry that scent, even though it doesn't state "RepKover" on the back. I see that it does carry the Linux Journal Press tag on it as well as No-Starch. I'd forgotten about that, but now I look, those early titles certainly were Linux heavy.

I have to wear readers for ebooks (and all screens) no matter how large I set the font because I don't want the text blurry.

Most of the time, text on paper is better. The exception being very small text on glossy paper (Norman Friedman, Naval Firepower).

I’m sitting here reading HN on an iPhone. The font is less than half the size of a typical book.

I do, but only as a present.