Chrkeller said:
Sure, but digital is 20% of book sales, which is significant. By 2029 analytics have the book market being 40% digital. So it is growing. I dont know the stats but gaming, music and shows/movies are dominated by digital. For modes younger folks, physical is a foreign concept. I'm not convinced my kids even know how to use a disc and I don't think they are the odd ones out. edit Internet has vinyl at 45 million sold, while CDs were roughly the same at 45 million. Apple Music has 105 million users, more than physical. While Spotify has 750 million users, almost 8x the entire physical market by itself. I remember back in the early 2000s I built a house and told the builder I didn't want telephone lines in the house. He told me I was crazy and it would hurt resale value because home phones weren't going anywhere. Who here has a home phone? |
E-books and Kindles have been a thing for decades now. If young people (or people in general) were going to make the switch in total, the book industry would have collapsed by now. It hasn't. It seems there is something different about the written word. Something tangible that people don't want to give up, and we should all count our blessings for that. Because like you said, everything else has either died off or shrunken down to niche. So it's good to see books carry the mantel.
