I am of the understanding that buying books online is hardly worth anything because you don’t actually own anything. Maybe you own the digital file? I’m not sure. I don’t trust the longevity of it, though.
I’m told a lot (mainly by my Dad) that its a good idea to print those out to keep them. However, I’m talking about books that are easily 200+ pages.
I don’t know if its worth the ink or money to print them out. At that point would it be better to just buy a book?
IMO the value of a book is not (only) the physical possession of a copy. Most of the time I am much more interested in consuming the content and supporting the work. For those purposes a digital copy also works. If I wanted to physically own something I would strongly prefer to buy an actual book over printing it out.