Funny article about the future of paper books

[carbonize]

My phone, the LG Arena, was launched April 2009 and it's display is 480 x 800 pixels on a 3 inch screen so you're a little wrong there. The iPhone 4G is rumoured to have 640 x 960 pixels in it's 3.5 inch screen.

[JayCeeEll]

On the day that every child starting at a new school is issued with a rugged computer with an e-ink equivalent screen containing all the text books for the whole curriculum, then the mainstream paper book is dead.

It may still take 10-15 years to die, but when these children leave school and start work they will strongly resist any reading material that is not electronic.

Ten years after they enter the workforce there will be almost nothing produced on paper.

If the publishing industry in its current form does not realise this and move with the times then it too is dead.

Paper book will probably live on in niche markets but they will be exactly that - niche.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Ebooks need to be stored on web servers that run 24 hours a day, and need to be read on devices that use electricity and are made using toxic chemicals that (usually) end up in the rivers. Trees used for paper production tend to be replaced with new trees, and produce oxygen while they are growing.

Yes... adult trees hundreds of feet tall are replaced with 4 foot saplings, that will not produce the equivalent amount of oxygen, soil erosion control or animal habitat as a full-grown tree for decades.

And if you think the toxic chemicals used to make electronics are bad, check out the toxic chemicals, bleaches and oils that are used to make paper, the incredible amounts of electricity needed to run pulping plants and printers, and the amount of oil needed to drive all that dead pulp around, and run the power plants that provide light and AC for their warehouses and stores.

And as one electronic device can hold hundreds to thousands of books, take the amount of power and chemicals used to make one electronic device, and multiply it by 100 or 1000... to get the equivalent power and chemicals used to make an equivalent number of printed books.

Get more here. Then read this.

[Krystian Galaj]

I'm sure plenty of people swore they would never ride in or operate a "horseless carriage"—and they never did! And then they died.

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

I really love the nonchalantness of this sentence - it drives home the point that, in the long run, the holdouts are irrelevant. When the world is made up of people who have since birth read most of their words on a digital screen, it won't matter what supposed advantages physical books have over eBooks.

That reminds me of a known quote, attributed to Max Planck:

Science progresses one funeral at a time.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by JayCeeEll

On the day that every child starting at a new school is issued with a rugged computer with an e-ink equivalent screen containing all the text books for the whole curriculum, then the mainstream paper book is dead.

I guess the third world XO deployments are the first step in that direction.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JayCeeEll

It may still take 10-15 years to die, but when these children leave school and start work they will strongly resist any reading material that is not electronic.

Ten years after they enter the workforce there will be almost nothing produced on paper.

... in first-world countries, perhaps. Paper has survived several thousand years because it's available across a wide range of technological skills; it's not going to be replaced by battery-op devices. Not even ones with really cheap, really powerful batteries.

Horses are still very good transportation in some parts of the world. In some parts of the US, even. Paper books aren't going to vanish, any more than horses have, even if they're replaced as the most common urban method of information storage & retrieval.

I'm all for more ebooks, more devices, and expect the collapse of the Big 6 publishing industry in the next couple of decades, and maybe sooner. But that doesn't mean I think pbooks will vanish--instead, they'll become a multi-niche market device.

Children's books will remain a solid market (three-year-olds are never going to deal with screens the way they do pages, and we don't have a digital version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar); reference books will still be useful on paper (we're quite a ways off from the ability to effectively flag an ebook in six places with movable post-it notes); coffee-table art books will still trump digital anything for their fans. And there'll still be plenty of demand for other books--pocket-size novelty books, crossword puzzles, baby's-first-year scrapbooks, recipe books with space for notes in the margins.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by carbonize

My phone, the LG Arena, was launched April 2009 and it's display is 480 x 800 pixels on a 3 inch screen so you're a little wrong there. The iPhone 4G is rumoured to have 640 x 960 pixels in it's 3.5 inch screen.

As I said, small 250dpi (125lpi) screens are only starting to be released. Such screens are two-thirds the resolution of mainstream offset-on-coated print and you can't get them in sizes larger than an envelope. It's taken a decade for this to happen, and it's still nowhere near good enough.

When will display technology be able to provide 300dpi on even a 10" screen?

The fact is that print is still so much cheaper than doing it electronically that there's very little incentive to invest the huge sums that will be needed to improve the manufacturing processes sufficiently.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by charleski

The problem is that day still seems pretty far off.

The real resolution (in dpi) of computer screens has remained unchanged for a decade.

Of course, that doesn't tell the whole story, does it? Sub-pixel rendering certainly has advanced in the last 10 years, as have contrast ratios and other factors.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Don't forget the joy of turning a page and finding a squashed fly that you have to scrape off with your fingernails before you can read the words underneath.

Originally Posted by Dellaster

Wow, I totally forgot that experience. Erm, thanks for the reminder? Less icky but more troublesome was when some joker put their gum between the pages.

or a bugger *shudder*

Originally Posted by carbonize

We will always have books. If nothing else what will people buy to read when they go on holiday or a long journey? I mean the sort of people who only read when they're on holiday or travelling. Then there's reference books. As convenient as the internet is I find it easier to have a real book in my hands and in fact have several books on PHP, MySQL and JavaScript/DHTML. Maybe the latter is just me but I definitely find it easier to have a real bok to learn from than having to flick between a website and whatever I am working in.

or maybe there will be a temporary borrowing option just as there is with renting headphones on airplanes. or there will be incredibly simple and cheap e-readers for the casual reader that would make it the most obvious choice to read off of

Originally Posted by carbonize

I already own a Sony PRS-600 but, as Format C: said on the first page, there is something more when reading a real book. Maybe it is the feel of the paper or maybe it's because I, like a lot of others, grew up learning from books. I don't know I just find it easier to learn when reading from a real book than from reading a electronic version as strange as that sounds.

I grew up with the real thing as well. part of my ritual with new books was opening the fron and back covers, opening the book in thirds to ease the spine the way my grandmother taught me, smelling the paper and the jacket. and I will always treasure those memories, but I am totally on board with the ebooks

Originally Posted by omk3

Horses are living, breathing, magnificent creatures, and talking about improving them sounds just wrong.
That they are now regarded as not an efficient means of transport is because we now have cars, trains, airplanes and so on. Before all this technology became available, horses actually were the most efficient means of transport and I'm sure many people could not see how there could be an improvement.

I believe I made it clear that I disagree, and I listed several attributes of ebooks that I miss in paper books.

not only that, but my ponies and I will be laughing at every one else come 2012! (hey! kust keeeeding!)

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Ebooks need to be stored on web servers that run 24 hours a day, and need to be read on devices that use electricity and are made using toxic chemicals that (usually) end up in the rivers. Trees used for paper production tend to be replaced with new trees, and produce oxygen while they are growing.

gack! ever been around paper mills!? not only is the stench horrendous, but what it does to the waters is a crime against humanity!

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by omk3

What is a "complete and better experience" in your mind?

In my mind is everithing which let me read and understand what's written in a book. For me, the iLiad, with its dictionary lookup feature gives a better experience than a paper book.
For aurial people a better experience include sound, for tactile people, it includes weight and pages to be turned.

Originally Posted by omk3

Do you want ebooks or ebook readers to smell of paper?

No, I don't.
But there are people who do.

Originally Posted by omk3

To become yellow and musty with age?

No, I don't.
But there are people who do.
[QUOTE=omk3;929426]Do you want them to play a sound when you turn a page?

Originally Posted by omk3

Do you want to be able to rip them apart?

No, I don't.
But there are people who do.

Originally Posted by omk3

To change their weight according to the size of the book?

No, I don't.
But there are people who do.

Originally Posted by omk3

To make it easy to accidentally turn two pages at once (I do it with paper books all the time, and wonder why the continuity suddenly doesn't make sense). To give you paper-cuts on demand?

No, I don't.
But there are people who do.

Originally Posted by omk3

To be awkward to hold open when you reach the middle of a thick book?

No, I don't.
But there are people who do.

Originally Posted by omk3

Yes paper books will always exist, as do vinyl records. Some people will love them, some more than others, and will collect them. Even people who buy vinyl records actually listen to the mp3 versions more often - I know, I live with one of them!

My opinion is that people who love to read books on paper are far more than LP lovers. And they add up to 33% of the entire population almost.

Originally Posted by omk3

I really don't understand what you're trying to prove.

It's all in my first post:
1. the author of that funny article is missing the point that lots of people want (not necessarily knowingly) to feel the book they're reading with all five senses. And the "tactile and olfactory" ones are not such a minority. And, most of all, they're not driven by nostalgia or by fondness to obsolete technology, but by the need of more complete experience (complete in term of senses, I mean).
2. to compare tools and leisures is wrong. Typewriter is a tool, and it's been replaced by word processing (still, a very small percentage of writers may still use it). Motor boats replaced galleons when used as tools, but sailing, as a sport, is still high. How many sailboats were sold in 1810? How many this year? Is it a so little percentage?
3. When ebooks will give the full experience they'll be ready to fully replace books. But in present they are not. And, honestly, if all the development goes toward colors, stronger DRM and higher prices, I don't see it happening very soon.
4 Just in case, I repeat again: I'm an ebook enthusiast. I've not read paper since I bought my third reader two years ago. I'm not talking about myself.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

At the risk of sounding blunt: Wrong.

When ebooks are cheaper, easier to get, easier to use and more convenient than printed books overall, and when most people have any electronic device at all to read them on, people will respond to convenience and give up the desire to buy bulky, expensive items for the sole reason of preserving secondary inputs... they will replace printed books with digital books, for all uses save boutique gifts and specialty items... there will be no more "mass market book."

And yes, I give it less than 20 years. I'd give it less than 10 if the overall publishing industry wasn't still stubbornly dragging its heels over the whole matter.

The establishment of a default format (ePub) will largely accomplish this. Just as standardized photo hardware, software and formats led to the inclusion of cameras in many portable devices, and the slow extinction of film camera, so ePub readers will be included in more personal devices, allowing people to read books on almost anything with a screen--and they will get used to various screen sizes, whatever best suits them, or is most convenient. Most importantly, they will get used to carrying their library with them at all times, just as they can with their music now, always ready to be accessed for information or for pleasure.

Eventually, the benefits of digital will far outweigh the tactile and olfactory aspects of paper, and we can start leaving all that pulp on the trees where it belongs.

OK.
You can find some of the people of which I'm talking about here: http://punto-informatico.it/b.aspx?i...28372#p2428372.
In other ebook related posts on this blog, and on Tom's Hardware, and on HW Upgrade, you'll find all what I'm saying.
So, go and sell ebook readers to them. Most of them are SF readers who will really like your books, even.

I'm sure that for those people convenience is not enough to replace multisensorial experience. I married one of them.
But I can change my mind, of course.

So, be back when they're convinced, I wait here.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Do you have to try very hard to misunderstand me constantly? Yes, they exist, but your claim that they form the majority is simply not backed up by empirical data. My experience tells me that, in fact, only a minority of readers is interested in anything but the words.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. Really.
And the statistics are not mine, I got them from experiments made in the USA:

"on average studies have shown rough 29% have a visual preference, 34% auditory and 37 kinaesthetic"
SMITH (IN TRUNER,T & FROST, T. 2005, 146)

I may be wrong, of course, so, if you have more precise studies, involving non american people, please link them.
Thanks.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by omk3

A paper book is more efficient than a horse?




No it's not. It's very inefficient for transporting things compared to a car. There was a time when the horse was the most efficient means of transport. But we moved on. That was exactly my point.

And that's a good point.
You're 100% right.

Car is more efficient than horse (*) when it comes to transportation.
But when you eat it, it's a no brainer. I've never see people eating Fords.

So, my point is: compare different things on the same field.
And reading for pleasure is not aonly about efficiency.


_________________________
(*) Things may change again. In my hometown, a Ferrari takes 450 HP to carry 2 people at an average speed of 7,5 MPH. A horse-drawn carriage takes 1 or 2 HP to carry 6 people at an average speed of 7,5 MPH. Which one is more efficient? Not to mention the cost of a Ferrari........

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Sure they will. In fact, they already have. How many people who would have in ages past resorted to going somewhere to listen to live musicians instead enjoy their music now at home with radios and iPods and internet streaming? Orchestras and other live musicians have become a small niche. Useful for rare special occasions or for people with enough spare money, time, and taste for them to afford the luxury, but the large scheme of things largely irrelevant.

How many orchestras were operating and playing concerts in 1810, when no recording existed?
How many musician are giving live concerts now?
Are they more or less?

What was the average audience at a single concert in 1810?
How much is it, now?

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Even if it is true that 33% of readers will stick with paper books as opposed to eBooks (and BTW, just because there are 3 kinds of people it does not follow that the population is evenly distributed among those categories), in a few more decades most of those people will be dead. Who will prop up the mass paper book industry then?

As I said, I got the statistics from a set of experiments made in the US; what I did was to approximate the numbers in thirds.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by JayCeeEll

On the day that every child starting at a new school is issued with a rugged computer with an e-ink equivalent screen containing all the text books for the whole curriculum, then the mainstream paper book is dead.

You're right.
It's like the Ford T: since then everybody's eating carburettors rather than horse fillets.