Quote:
Originally Posted by lilac_jive
Living in NoVa, you should know people still ride horses.
Well, at least ten years ago when I lived there. All the rich people played polo.
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I think, aside from things like children's books and art books which naturally do better in the form, paper books will be more a luxury item. Yes, there is something about a beautifully bound classic that is a joy to behold as primbs' quote mentioned. However, most of the paper books we consume are not like that. Maybe your rich, polo playing neighbors had personal libraries full of gorgeous leather bindings but my middle class den is full of paperbacks and cloth bindings. They're more ephemeral. Most of those books will be read once as will magazines and newspapers. Horses used to be the main form of transportation. Now they're mostly used for pleasure riding and sport.
While I don't think paper books will be as rare as horses, I can see a day where book-loving folks like us will only have a few beloved paper books, which will be much more expensive, and the rest will be digital. I don't think paper will go away but there's going to be a whole lot less of it. On the bright side, when I'm paying for a book I love, I'll spend a lot more to get a beautiful printing. As POD technology improves I can see it filling this need. Can you imagine being able to get any book that is a classic
to you in a premium paper stock with a lovely binding of your choice? It's hard enough to find a good printing of books that are widely recognized as classics. The market isn't there for it. These days, if you want a lovely binding, you have to take it to a bookbinder anyway. I think the decline of paper could actually make a new artisan market for it as people make the decision about which books they want as tangible objects and how much they want to pay to make that object beautiful.