[iDC] Media dies more slowly than some would like

[Paul B. Hartzog]

Greetings, my recent work with Richard Adler on "social publishing"
demands that I chime in here. There is a lot to respond to. :-)

First off, as new technologies "replace" old ones they have a very
specific effect.  The new technology expresses new kinds of useful
functionality that the old technology does not have, and MAY even
replicate some functions of the old technology, but there is always
some set of functions retained by the old technology that do not
translate into the new technology.

Nevertheless, some value of the old technology increases.  For
example, horse-drawn carriages still exist, but NOT as a means of
transportation.  Instead, it is an aesthetic experience, sought out by
many, even in the heart of giant cities.  However, in the case of
shipping, we have a variety of technologies -- trucks, ships,
railroads, airplanes -- and differences in use stem from a variety of
factors, which means there is no replacement vector for these
technologies.  In addition, we need to consider cultural variation:
Europe and the U.S. have very different distributions of
infrastructures to facilitate cars, trains, bicycles, and even canal
barges (should I include the Segue here? ;-)

As much as I love Grafton's other work, he really misses the point.
Papyrus shaped early "books"
but eventually the new form found its own expressions/modes.  This is
typical of technological change:  early TV was simply radio shows on
television.  Later, a technology breaks (never fully) from early
technological constraints as it finds its own "voice."
Bolter/Grusin's work on Remediation is thoughtful.

In the original post Rick Prelinger said:
> > There is absolutely no evidence that ebooks will replace printed books
> unless we want them to.  In fact, the obsolescence of physical books isn't a
> technical or philosophical issue; it's preeminently a business and marketing
> issue.  Will the publishing industry try to force readers to buy and use
> text digitally?

The publishing industry forced people to by books.  Monopolizing
access to the media is how they make money, even if they publish
multiple media (thus, the big conglomerates).  One of the values of
digitality is that we can publish to each other, without all the
overhead of traditional mechanisms.

Rick:
> But right now the opposite is happening, as
> Microsoft and Google build separate enclosed gardens of public domain books
> they're paying to scan.)

This is the old-style model of "select first, make accessible second."
 The essence of "social publishing" is that material is made available
FIRST and only then does selection begin (by rating, reviewing,
commenting, etc.).  Microsoft and Google already face a significant
challenge in that they don't know what to select, and they best way
for them to know that is to make the material available first and then
ask the community what to select (at which point the situation is
ludicrous because the material is already available).  We can't
navigate this transition with backwards thinking.

Rick:
> The publishing industry, like the recording industry, is its own worst
> enemy.  Instead of taking a deliberative and receptive attitude towards
> technology, they are allowing their actions to be dictated by blind, often
> unthinking fear.  They would do best by being customer-centered and ensuring
> that readers could obtain texts in whatever formats they chose with minimal
> difficulty.... Can't both exist and flourish, along with audiobooks,
> large-type books and other formats that may emerge?

Certainly, many types will flourish because they offer different
experiences of a "text."  Not only is this good for culture, it is
also good for business (if business truly understand what is good for
them).  Print-on-demand, and audiobook-on-demand (which has already
happened via amateur p2p readers), are here to stay.

David asks a bundle of questions:
> So, what the benefits of paper books are that will keep them from becoming
> obsolete?
> What are the other benefits of pbooks? How many of those benefits are
> sustainable? How many are not replicable with ebooks?
> What are the benefits of pbooks that will keep plibraries from going the way
> of going the way of live theater? And I don't mean that rhetorically.

So a quick look: 1) browsing, solvable, 2) readability, solvable, 3)
annotatability, solvable, 4) replicability (which erases lending),
solved (DRM is moot because it is undeployable).

"Durability" requires some unpacking.  Stone is more durable than
paper.   But durability is a changing definition because at different
moments in history we want different kinds of durability.  Digital
media are less durable than ever as file formats and hardware arrive
and vanish overnight.  What kind of durability do we want now?  Paper
burns.  Computers need electricity.  Even pyramids crumble.

Next, yes, not all books will be available digitally, but not all old
papyri/tablets will ever be available as books.  Do we care?  We
haven't adopted paper and abandoned stone.  In fact, we still inscribe
on stone (on monuments, for example), but the when/how/why of stone
has changed from being a primary mode to an aesthetic (or other
reasons) mode.

David:
> much of the value of Wikipedia (oy, yes, the Wikipedia
> example again) and of blogs (nooo! not blogs!) obviously come from how they
> get past the limitations of paper. It's important to ask, as Rick does,
> about the ways in which pbooks will shape ebooks, but I think most of the
> shaping is going in the other direction, even though Kindle highlights its
> own commitment to the sacred rectangle of the page.

When we use the language of limitations we are missing half of the
picture.  As I implied earlier, we should use the language of
affordances AND limitations for any technology.  Moreover, I do not
think that the technologies affect each other, but rather, we might
say that as our demands change, the relationship between various
technologies and ourselves all change.  For example, in Convergence
Culture, Jenkins talks about how WWW communities releasing "spoilers"
changed TV, but what really happened was that all of the relationships
between people and technology were changing.

David:
> So, for now I think I'm sticking with the notion that ebooks will make
> pbooks obsolete. That doesn't mean books go away. Rather...
... it means that what a "book" IS changes.  Just as we no longer
refer to a horse-drawn carriage as transportation (although it is
perhaps a vehicle), we might no longer refer to a book as
authoritative (i.e. "edition" may pass from our vocabulary).

> Thank you so much for this posting, Rick.
Absolutely, Rick.  Thanks.

-Paul

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PaulBHartzog at panarchy.com
PHartzog at umich.edu
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The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
                 --Muriel Rukeyser

See differently, then you will act differently.
                 --Paul B. Hartzog
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