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If 1 million of those copies went to public or school libraries, it's not impossible to imagine that they were referenced 5 times a day each on average—before t
by Cpoll 2y ago
If 1 million of those copies went to public or school libraries, it's not impossible to imagine that they were referenced 5 times a day each on average—before the internet became mainstream. That makes 150 million "visits" a month.
- cinntaile 2y agoThat doesn't make any extra money, internet visits are more valuable.
- f1shy 2y agoDo you have any idea what the price of that thing was, back in the days?!
- dougb5 2y agoThere's an order of magnitude fewer libraries than that, but I get your point, and you may be right. It's an interesting "Fermi problem". I wonder how these numbers compare to the dictionary, which is much cheaper but was also much more widely sold. BTW Microsoft Encarta clobbered the print EB a few years before the Web finished the job. EB sales fell by 50% within three years of its release! See "The Reference Wars" for a closer look at this: https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%2520Files/Reference%2520Wars%2520-%2520Greenstein_6c4ac193-51eb-4758-a5a6-a4c412261411.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%2520Files/Reference%2520...