Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Only the reduced buying of NEW paper books affects the supply of Used paper books. I imagine that is already happening and will only accelerate.
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Used books need shelves to sit on. When the used book shops are gone, where are the books going to be stored? There are thrift shops, but they're run on a shoestring, and are unlikely to be offering their used books over Amazon or Abe. And they only have so much shelf space.
As you said, demand for used books is going down. It doesn't have to go to zero before a used book shop can't make a profit and must shut down (as I'm seeing in my neighbourhood). The fewer shops are left, the fewer shelves to store the used books on, the fewer used books are available to sell. The bulk donation operations don't sell used books directly to readers, they sell to book shops. So, not even those operations are going to save used books if they have no one to give them to.
That's why I think there's going to be a catastrophic decrease in the supply of used books, as opposed to a gradual one that matches the drop in demand.