Quote:
Originally Posted by outlander78
The trend I have seen:
1. People like streaming video, or getting it on demand - movie stores, especially rentals, are dying out.
2. Young people (the majority buyers of music) want it cheap and fast, don't care about owning the CD or vinyl.
3. Digital distribution of computer games is being driven at both ends - consumers want it now, publishers want to cut out the used trade.
4. Comic books are a dying industry; they are now only found in specialty shops.
5. Newspaper subscriptions are dwindling; people want their news online.
I believe you that books are not going away, but I think ebooks are going to make a major dent in the physical book business. I don't know anyone with an ebook reader who has kept buying physical books at the same rate, and I know fewer and fewer people who do not own an ebook reader, smart phone or tablet.
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Very perceptive quote, but it really goes beyond that. As broadband connectivity and digital content becomes ubiquitous, it appears to me that the problem for booksellers is that people will not want to own content at all, rather they will want ACCESS to content, 24/7, streamed to their computer, for a monthly fee. I remember when I suggested that this was the model of the future on an early thread, people reacted s if I was insulting their mother and screamed abuse at me, saying it was all about DRM and dastardly restrictions on " ownership rights." Without getting back into a discussion of the Topic That Cannot be Discussed, I would submit that the coming generation has moved on and that publishers and booksellers better be thinking of ways to monetize ACCESS to, rather than SALE of, books . Of course, in such a world, the very concept of physical bookstores is a nonstarter and even the current Amazon model, so beloved in MR, would need to be rethought.
IMO, in 20 years and maybe in 10, the bookstore will have gone the way of the video rental store. There will be niche bookstores and booksellers selling physical books. Most people will subscribe to various pools of books for a set fee, a la Netflix. These ebooks will be streamed to their ereading devices, but no one will own many ebooks. Why own, when you can just buy access , 24/7, to the book you want? Connectivity will be by then ubiquitous and the objection that they cannot guarantee a continuous connection for the reading of an ebook will seem quiant., assuming that they haven't found other ways to solve that technical problem. Anyway, that's my vision of the future. It may not be a happy one for those who see ownership of ebooks as the sine qua non, but I think that's where we are headed.