Ah, the overflowing privilege of handing out entitlements? Your brethren doesn’t own the language either, you know that right?

The situation is in no way symmetric, as only one party is claiming a non-standard limitation on valid uses of the language. The other parties are claiming both a standard and more permissive use.

This is a classic flat earth argument.

‘Because people are saying so...’

Proper definition is the only definition that there is. Improper definitions may be valid uses in colloquial speak, but that doesn’t work for accurate description of products at hand. Success of physical books, as in the data, is a proof of proper usage. I rest my case. Time to go back to work.

Edit: Response to the child comment below:

You're going in the wrong direction.

That 'books are not files' is a plain fact. It has nothing to do with popular opinion or liberal usage of words. Although, if you were to look at it liberally through the lens of popular usage alone then also the usage and growth of dead tree books over the shallow market of files masquerading as ebooks will reveal the same plain fact.

>This is a classic flat earth argument. ‘Because people are saying so...’

No. Again you reason by false equivalence. The shape of the earth is not determined by popular opinion. The meaning of words is determined by popular usage.