Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnRR
Furthermore, in some developing countries, not everyone has the chance to use ebook reader or smartphones as they are expensive. They are likely to choose paper books as the price is lower to them.
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Right.
Paper books won't become rare luxuries unless and until it is just as cheap to manufacture an eReader, with a single book, than it is to manufacture a book.
Also needed is invention of an eBook form factor where the cover is equivalent, from a marketing standpoint, to today's book jacket art.
If all that does come together, I do predict the near-death of paper.
One big disadvantage to paper, from the standpoint of the book industry, is the need to remainder and pulp a large portion of the typical original print run. By contrast, a single-book eReader could be reprogrammed, perhaps without leaving the bookstore.
Can I be sure that single-book eReaders are in our future? Of course not. The path of future invention is highly unpredictable. But I do think that paper technology is mature, whereas eReader technology has far to go. The devices that will kill paper aren't here yet.