Once upon a time there was a form of entertainment that practically everyone enjoyed and then someone invented a gadget that would bring that grand entertainment closer to the consumer.
I’m talking about movies.
Used to be the only place you could enjoy one was on a big screen in your local theatre located somewhere downtown and it used to be those local theatres were opulent palaces with balconies and chandeliers.
Then came the television. Eventually, someone smart realized you could broadcast movies on those as well.
Of course the purists cried, “Movies can’t be enjoyed on a tiny screen.” The picture was fuzzy. The sound was tinny. “This is not the way movies were meant to be enjoyed.”
But television, and watching movies on television, only became more popular over time despite the obvious and quite noticeable drawbacks and limitations in the technology. And then the purists cried, “Watching movies at home will kill the theatrical movie business.”
They did. They really did.
But even though the glowing box in the living room may have cannibalized some of the theatrical movie business because of its ease of use, people are still going out to the movies in droves. In fact, the theatrical movie business makes more money (in total dollars, not unadjusted gross) now than ever before.
And those who once fought the proliferation of the easy-to-use, access-friendly television because they feared it would cannibalize their business soon found ways to create even more monetization streams through home video and licensing. In fact, the marriage of movies and this new home technology is so lucrative, many theatrical releases often find their way to profitability through home video.
While this is a gross oversimplification of the facts, there is no doubt that television, the divisive consumer-technology which even decades later is still inferior to the in-theatre movie going experience, is a very successful medium for movie makers.
People don’t care that the image is smaller or the sound not as full because even on the small screen, if the story is good people find themselves absorbed into it. Consumers get lost in the experience and the actual medium fades away.
Kinda like what happens when you read an eBook.
Reading on the Kindle is a very similar parallel. On screen, the fonts are the same from book to book, the presentation very similar. All you have are words. And if those words are strung together in an interesting way, getting lost in the story is no different than reading an old fashioned book made from dead trees.
Even though the screen is black and white and the page refreshes are something you have to get used to. But in the end, the result is the same, the medium of presentation soon fades away and a good book is a good book is a good book.
And this is a format that translates even more purely than movies to television because with text only you never lose the aspect of cinematography.
So again, why do people fear the eBook? Why do they fear the eReader?
Because that’s what people do. Whenever there is a new technology, it is human nature for those who make their living with the old technology to decry that with it comes the end of civilization as we know it.
Remember what happened with mp3′s? With the iPod? While the overall sale of the physical medium may have suffered, in the last 10 years the growth of digital music has exploded. The same can, of course, be said about downloadable movies and television. From these emerging markets have grown full industries.
And still people go to the movies in theatres. People still watch television shows on TV.
People still buy music on vinyl–and while this can be described as a “specialty market”. It is also one indentified with the more discerning consumer. One who still likes the sound, and arguably the warmth, of vinyl and the way the format physically feels and looks.
So I propose to you that eBooks will not be the death of the publishing industry–an industry that has changed very little in over a century, which is quite a run I do say. But eBooks and eBook readers are not going away. They will only get better and easier to use and most importantly, cheaper.
Just like television.
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