Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
I don't think history is in the paper book's favor. What's more, I don't think the economics favor paper books, either.
Ebooks are already outselling paper books, and it's only been a few years. Paper books are also more expensive to produce, and more expensive to reproduce. I'm just not seeing a usage scenario where e-books are less profitable for publishers than paper, in the long run.
I don't think all production of paper books will stop anytime soon (if ever) but I would be astounded if paper books were regularly produced 20 years from now. Maybe even 15 years from now.
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And while records are still around you don't see them out in a lot of stores anymore. Mostly stores that cater to those who search for them I think. I mean I can recall when I was a teenager stores like Wal-Mart had records and cassette tapes in their music section. Now it's pretty much just CD's that you find there. And how many companies still make turntables? Cassette players are part of portable CD players, but VHS players are now part of DVD recorders as well. When was the last time you saw a pure VHS player or recorder in a store? They're being transitioned out in favor of the new media. Even DVD players are giving way to the Blue-Ray player so one day the basic DVD player will probably be gone too. I can imagine a time based on that track record when books will transition from pbooks to ebooks. With how many there are out there it may take a while but Gutenberg printed 200 Bibles in 1450 and now only 48 still exist as far as we know. So over the last 561 years 152 copies of his 1st book (more than 3/4ths) have been lost. Considering how simply most pbooks are made compared to the binding of the Gutenberg Bible and how little regard most people have for them (due to how common pbooks are) I could see them becoming rare eventually.