4 ms·

PDF is a file. Books are anything but. That’s a lazy alternative that did not succeed in 30 years. Why would that happen now?

mchannon 8y ago
PDF came out 25 years ago. Replace "PDF"/"Books" with "PNG"/"Photographs", or "MP3"/"Recordings", and you'll see how well that argument went over. One should make the argument via YouTube to double the irony. A group of hipster book snobs jealously guarding their century-old first editions are welcome to their hobby, but the mass media will blow right past them as soon as the economics are favorable. What's remarkable is how much more sophisticated 35mm film and vinyl are versus the old staid book. Why now? Consumers are getting fussier (I want what's hot now, not in 8 weeks), and production equipment is getting way cheaper. Laser printing costs (even quasi-consumer-level) have plummeted to the point where equipment manufacturers have to resort to gimmickry to keep their margins positive. While all the paper textbooks you've read to date probably originated roll-to-roll, I see laser (and the flexibility it offers) finally breaking into that market.
- marvindanig 8y ago
  Youtube did the job right for sure, I agree with you there but not with a similar jest for PDF/books equivalence. Youtube killed cassettes, CDs and all other offline forms of video: on plastic and also over a format file saved on a disk. PDF is like those .wmp Windows Media Player video files that no one has the time or interest to download and then read on. Sure it works among techies because a good alternative has not existed but the real market of book doesn't consume PDFs or ePubs. They don't understand those, and don't appear to care because it is bad un-relatable experience to begin with.
bobthepanda 8y ago
The parent comment is proposing a just in time small-batch printer. In the same vein, we have just-in-time photo printers or FedEx Kinko’s. Ideally the output book is almost as good quality as one made during a large print run. But the output is still just a book.

mchannon 8y ago

PDF came out 25 years ago. Replace "PDF"/"Books" with "PNG"/"Photographs", or "MP3"/"Recordings", and you'll see how well that argument went over. One should make the argument via YouTube to double the irony. A group of hipster book snobs jealously guarding their century-old first editions are welcome to their hobby, but the mass media will blow right past them as soon as the economics are favorable. What's remarkable is how much more sophisticated 35mm film and vinyl are versus the old staid book. Why now? Consumers are getting fussier (I want what's hot now, not in 8 weeks), and production equipment is getting way cheaper. Laser printing costs (even quasi-consumer-level) have plummeted to the point where equipment manufacturers have to resort to gimmickry to keep their margins positive. While all the paper textbooks you've read to date probably originated roll-to-roll, I see laser (and the flexibility it offers) finally breaking into that market.

marvindanig 8y ago
Youtube did the job right for sure, I agree with you there but not with a similar jest for PDF/books equivalence. Youtube killed cassettes, CDs and all other offline forms of video: on plastic and also over a format file saved on a disk. PDF is like those .wmp Windows Media Player video files that no one has the time or interest to download and then read on. Sure it works among techies because a good alternative has not existed but the real market of book doesn't consume PDFs or ePubs. They don't understand those, and don't appear to care because it is bad un-relatable experience to begin with.

bobthepanda 8y ago

The parent comment is proposing a just in time small-batch printer. In the same vein, we have just-in-time photo printers or FedEx Kinko’s. Ideally the output book is almost as good quality as one made during a large print run. But the output is still just a book.