After posting “Everything is changing” yesterday, I came across this FYE store on my commute home:
Obsolete Technology: On Sale Now!
I wouldn’t want to be selling CDs and DVDs right now. Particularly from a brick-and-mortar storefront. Content is rapidly digitizing and physical media are bulky, expensive, inefficient, and inconvenient.
Why carry that zippered case full of CDs or DVDs when you can fit your entire media library on something the size of a key fob? Eventually, why carry even a key fob or thumb drive or media player when your car or smartphone or computer will just sync your library from the cloud and everything will be conveniently available when and where you need it?
I wouldn’t want to be selling books, either.
I love books. The physical, tactile, stretch-out-on-a-couch-by-the-fire-with-my-dog-at-my-feet experience of books. In spite of this, I am considering a Kindle or a Nook. If you read a lot of books, an eReader’s simplicity (download rather than order online or drive to a bookstore) and economics (significant savings per title at only $9.99 for a new release) are compelling. And although only a small fraction of readers have adopted the Kindle, these lead users are already having a disruptive impact. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), a small fraction of readers represents a very large proportion of book purchases. In fact, for books available on the Kindle, the Kindle represents ~35% of book sales. This is less than 1% of the addressable market representing 35% of unit sales! If this trend continues and eReaders gain in popularity, then bookstores will eventually go the way of video rental stores and CD/DVD stores. And dinosaurs.
Michael A M Davies
Brad W Hagedorn
Moe Kelley
Amy Bullard Davies
5 November 2009 at 19:38 |
[...] and eBooks My colleague Moe Kelley makes an incredibly important point in his recent post about the importance of [...]
5 November 2009 at 23:26 |
I have been very skeptical about the Kindle, until my colleague got one. He bought it just to read the New York Times everyday. In Boulder it costs $7-9 for a copy of the NYT Sunday – so the investment in the Kindle will pay for itself in about six months – WITH JUST THE NEWSPAPER!!!
6 November 2009 at 09:36 |
Kenyon, I agree about the Kindle – I was skeptical until I played with one. The user experience is actually very good, and the savings adds up quickly if you read a lot.
19 November 2009 at 02:38 |
[...] implications of continued rapid technological change My posts last week about Obsolete technology and how Everything’s changing started some interesting conversations. Some argued against [...]
20 November 2009 at 20:19 |
I find the 35% Kindle to be highly suspect; do you have a source other than Amazon?
20 November 2009 at 21:01 |
@Tom, unfortunately we do not gave a source other than Amazon. On the other hand, this was a prepared slide at a public press conference, so that it seems unlikely (and very risky) for Jeff Bezos to misrepresent this in any way. It’s also consistent with some trend data we’d obtained, that said ~13% in February and ~25% by mid-year.
Michael