Michael Cairns says ebooks as we largely understand them may be a short-term fading generational segment. From PersonaNonData:
Today’s publishers for the first time in their history have no confidence that their child’s generation will be (or are) interested in their published output. It is not that publishers aren’t making an effort; however, I have a disturbing belief that there is an preponderance of focus on forcing existing content into a format and delivery mechanism (e-books and e-readers) that is not ideal only to have that e-book content used by a market — my and my parents’ generation — that is in long term decline.
In other words, migrating content so that it is available on an e-book may provide a false sense of security for publishers who believe this is enough to ‘re-launch’ their content to the newest generations.