Cost For a few dollars, you can be reading a book. But you'll need a couple thousand dollars to do so on a laptop. The useful lives of electronic data storage methods are measured in years, not centuries. An additional advantage of paper is its limited capacity, which, in the best of worlds, forces careful editing and yields more succinct exposition. In the case of the computer, the marginal cost of publishing another paragraph, or chapter, is virtually zero, so there is no economic incentive to edit.
Intangibles Read a book, close it, leave it on a shelf.
No matter how much time may pass, the contents await you, unchanged. Electronic data, particularly on the Internet, are ephemeral and prone to unexpected editing or complete disappearance. Furthermore, the book itself conveys a surprising amount of additional information. For example, you can easily assess how much material you've covered and how much is ahead. Finally, score one for computers.