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Originally Posted by Moejoe
Now you're onto something with what you said. You were paid for a job, a job I could no more do than most (I am clueless when it comes to science). What you were doing was providing a specialized service and that kind of fixed payment for work done model will continue unabated in the future. Not everyone can write a physics book, most people can write fiction (look at Dan Brown).
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Please. "...most people can write fiction..."? Most people can't even write an email that's very interesting. Yes, LOTS of folks can write, even monkeys can if you can get them to bang on a keyboard long enough. But not many folks want to READ what's been written. Writing is like any other skill: the very BEST are very FEW in number, and anything that's rare (AND in sufficient demand) will have a value.
What IS changing is how those very best get paid. They WILL get paid, don't doubt that for a moment. The method will change (don't doubt THAT for a moment).
Remember that the concept of the modern novel (and story-telling method) hasn't been around all that long. In modern society, movies and television are taking over from the printed word (talking about entertainment here, ignoring textbooks, etc), but they still have to be WRITTEN, and you can bet that someone is going to get paid to write them. It costs millions (and hundreds of millions) of dollars to produce TV shows and movies, and you can bet that no one is going to spend that kind of money "just for the love of it."
Robert Heinlein was very fond of the acronym TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. It's as true today as it's always been, and it will continue to be true in the future. NOTHING is ever 'free', there's always a cost. What form that cost will take, I don't know. The FORM of our entertainments may (almost certainly WILL) change, and the ways that the creators of those entertainments get paid may change, and not ALL creators of entertainments will get paid for doing so. But you can bet that the BEST of those creators will still get paid.
A better thesis for this thread, rather than that all books in the future will be free, is that computers and the digital revolution may very well spell the end of books as we know them. Just as no one writes Greek Tragedies any more, the time may be rapidly approaching when no one writes a "modern novel" any more. When the Piper doesn't get paid, the Piper generally doesn't keep on piping... at least, not the way you expected.