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Old 09-19-2011, 06:58 AM   #88
TFeldt
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Posts: 75
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Sweden
Device: Asus Transformer, Galaxy S
Not a chance. Sure, I bought both ebooks and pbooks for the longest time, just like I still bought VHS when DVD was introduced. With digital there's just no comparison, however. Both VHS and DVD were physical objects, something you had to track down, carry and then store.

I abandoned CDs almost immediately when a format of comparable (questionable for some, of course) quality and decent compression ratio was made available. For the last couple of years I haven't even bought digital music tracks, I just get everything from my spotify subscription.

The question isn't if ebooks will completely overtake physical, they will. Digital always overtakes physical when it comes to content. The question is if the standard "pay X money to get Y books"-model will apply at all. It's hardly a stretch to imagine a spotify-like service for books as well. Kind of like commercial libraries.

I know many fear such a development, but they just don't understand the way the market is heading. Look at the advent of free-to-play games. They're entirely free yet the companies behind them make billions from what amounts to optional payments from their players.

Look at spotify, I've listened to bands I've never even heard of before. There's absolutely no chance I would have randomly bought a song from them (even with the silly 20 second preview) if they charged me a buck a song. Thus they're getting money from me, a person entirely outside of not just their target audience but also outside of their listening audience.

When the barrier of entry (financially) is nil then your target audience is automatically several magnitudes larger than it ever would be if your charged for your product. The tricky part is finding a business model to leverage this advantage which is something I'm not sure how to do with books in particular but I'm certain smarter people than me will find one eventually.
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