Tesco’s, a huge supermarket chain in Britain, has launched its own ebooks website with hundreds of thousands of ebooks for sale. Is this a good thing?

Photo by Brooksmemorial http://www.flickr.com/photos/25019277@N02/Well, yes and no I suppose. On the plus side, I think it’s good that Amazon’s monopolistic position as a purveyor of (e)books is being challenged.

On the other hand, I wonder if this will drive the price of books down even further. Low prices may be a good thing for consumers, but I think it reinforces the idea, in some people’s minds, that books don’t have much value, and that anyone can write them anyway.

Still, on the other hand (which makes three hands!), anything that encourages more people to read has to be a good thing.

There’s more information about the Tesco’s service, which is called Blinkbox Books, over at The Bookseller website: Tesco launches blinkbox books