PUBLISHING

ecome valuable design objects rather than cheap throwaway mass media,
eventually occupying a similar ‘craft’ niche as calligraphy after the invention
of the printing press, and letterpress typesetting after the invention of phototypesetting.
But where will these electronic libraries be stored, and who will control
access to them? The ‘cloud’ is entirely dependent on a permanent supply
of electricity, on a dense and fast internet infrastructure, and on hardware/
software platform consistency. Who will guarantee that the cloud, containing
all your books and other data, will be perpetually maintained, kept open and
accessible – let alone unfiltered and free from surveillance and censorship?
READING AND BOOK CULTURE
In reading culture and book retail, we can already see a shift from buying and
owning individual ebooks towards all-you-can-read subscription models.
Just like the music and film industries before them (with Spotify and Netflix
respectively), the publishing industry is moving towards flat-rate subscription
packages. In the U.S., Oyster Books offers a ‘streaming service’ for books,
while Amazon has recently launched its Kindle Unlimited program, with
access to 600,000 ebooks for a monthly fee of $10. Such services have major
drawbacks: the books they offer are no longer stored on people’s devices, but
only accessed from a remote server. Therefore they are subject to arbitrary
modifications, censorship or even outright deletion. These books will disappear
as soon as the central server disappears – which can happen overnight.
The same economic pressures that are currently forcing the industry to lower
the price of ebooks, may well end up disempowering readers.
The commerce of publishing will also be increasingly advertisement-driven.
Statistical data-mining of consumer habits, as already practiced by Facebook,
Google and Amazon, will of course influence consumers’ choices. This model
is likely to become the norm once subscription models are widely adopted.
Then user statistics and ‘big data’ will be at the heart of the publishing industry’s
business models.
Flat-rate ebook subscriptions will eventually pose a serious threat to today’s
public libraries. Such new models offer attractive cost-cutting opportunities
for policy makers. After transportation, energy, arts and education, public
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