A timely Economist book business reality check; read the full article
Bookstores and publishers may be hurting, but this does not mean that the book itself is in trouble -- at least not immediately. For one, its physical incarnation will not disappear any time soon. People have grown up reading paper books and will not kick the habit easily. And e-readers and similar devices are still no match for the technology known as the book. Try annotating a textbook on a Kindle or reading your favorite author on an iPad whose battery has given up the ghost (replacing it will cost you $99 and all the data will be lost).
What is more, digital technology is strengthening, not weakening the book. Historically, new ways to distribute books have often led to innovations.
1 comment:
Interesting. I have this pet theory called "paradigm persistence". Paradigm Persistence (as I call it) recognizes that old paradigms do not always disappear when new paradigms arise.
Take transportation as an example. We started out walking, then riding horses, than bikes, than cars, than planes. Now the plane is the most advanced method of travel but it didn't completely replace cars. We still use cars and truck a lot, but when we have to travel far we use a plane. Accross water, the plane did replace the ship for many people but not for everything. You don't ship cars from asia to the U.S. using air planes. You use ships.
The point is that some new paradigms do not completely replace old paradigms. They do take a slice of the usage pie, but not all of it.
Some paradigms remain as pragmatic and economically viable alternatives. The ship vs. the plane for example. Others are kept for non-pragmatic reasons. For example, some folks still ride horses but you don't take a horse to work - or at least most of us don't. You walk or take a car.
So the question is not if the paper book will persist, it will, but why will it persist. Will it persist because its more cost effective or pragmatic or will it persist for the same reason that riding horses persists; because people desire it as a kind of experience.
I think paper books are going to persist because some people simply prefer the experience but from a pragmatic and economic perspective, paper books will be replaced by electronic readers.
Paper books will become little works of art. Bindings and paper choices will be based on aesthetics not economics. Books will become what they were early in their invention - objects of pleasure and experience physically rather than simply the most convenient containers of knowledge and story telling as they have been for the past 100 years.
So books will become luxury product while th bulk of what we read will be delivered electronically.
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