Google's plan, from the outset, a year before we ever heard about it via the media, was to create the most "eBooks" for the cheapest cost and to generate the most media blitz public relations they could; it really had very little to do with creating high quality eBooks, tho, even I must admit, some came out better than I expected. When it comes to comparisons to PG/DP, Google is a paper tiger quite literally when it comes to quality, but when it comes to quantity it is PG/DP that is the dead tree big stripey cat. All in all, it won't hurt either way, and the ends will hit middles, with greater numbers of eBooks and greater quality. Don't forget The Internet Archive, etc. On Wed, 3 Mar 2010, James Adcock wrote:
do you want to bet against google?
because i'll take that bet against you.
Sure, I’d be happy to take that bet, if I am allowed to win it or lose it in a finite amount of time – such as a decade. What I think is much more likely in a decade is that Google is either gives up or they figure out how to post much more attractive page images. I actually don’t think they have much of any interest in posting higher quality automatic OCR transcriptions.