[Alfy]

@DDHariman:

Perhaps it's like racism? Hatred disguising fear?

More seriously, I think it's absolutely normal these people make the wrong decision, constantly. Think of it this way:

The top management of any major publisher has got to be 40 or more. The very top top management, more like in their 50s. Those people have had 40 years with paper books only. The old hands must have spent 30 years of their lives with one business model only. And at that age, chances are, you're computer illiterate, at least to some extend, unless of course you're a classy penguin called Bob.

So their understanding of e-business has got to be fairly limited. All they have to go with, when it comes to digital media management, it what they get from mainstream press, and that media has bashed P2P networks and extolled the qualities of DRMs. Scaremongers telling about how the music industry as a whole is about to go bust because, when given the chance, we're just all a bunch of thieves.

So personally, I'm not surprised. It's one of the reason I was mentioning the illegal download of scanned pBooks: only way I ever found dealing with elders (and yes, I'm talking to you, mom and dad!) is not by telling them how the new is better, 'cos they don't really care, they just want things to stay just the way they are, but by telling them their old model isn't really as safe as they think. Once they realize that, stepping forward ain't that scary anymore.