|
My feeling is that as Internet access becomes more and more ubiquitous, a lot of content will wind up connected to "The Cloud."
People really like the idea of instantly buying and downloading content, as well as having data backed up and synced to multiple devices, instead of relying on a cumbersome "hook your device to your computer and use our clunky software" approach.
I don't expect Google to take over though. The reality is that they're a pack of navel-gazing self-centered engineers who overwhelmingly earn their money off of search, and do other stuff only because it's a puzzle or engineering challenge. They're not retailers, they barely do customer service, and they certainly don't know much about selling books. I don't see much reason to have faith in them delivering a customer-oriented, book-savvy service.
Also, there will be many unforeseen consequences of cloud-based services. The content providers will be able to wipe content; law-enforcement agencies face lower barriers to access the data (e.g. subpoena vs search warrant); increased susceptibility to data mining; better possibility of dynamic in-book ads, and who knows what else.
|