Vent: that article claiming tablets would kill paper books by 2015

I remember reading some tech blog back in 2010 that said by 2015 no one would buy physical books anymore. tablets were gonna take over everything. i was super skeptical even then because I love the feel of a real book and so do a lot of my friends. fast forward to now and I still see people reading paperbacks on the bus every day. my local library in Austin still has a huge physical section and it's always busy. sure ebooks are a thing but they didn't kill paper at all. what really convinced me was seeing my nephew pick up a hardcover at a garage sale last summer and spend hours reading it. the prediction was just way off. has anyone else seen a old take like that that totally missed the mark?

2 comments

2 Comments

susan_wells7d ago

idk, maybe it's just me but wasn't that 2010 article actually from 2012? i swear i remember the whole "tablets will kill paper books by 2015" thing popping up around then, not 2010. like the prediction was still wrong but the timeline's a little off.

quinn_nguyen6d ago

Oh man, I gotta gently push back on that one. I actually remember reading that exact article in late 2010 because it was right after the iPad launched and everyone was losing their minds. The "books will be dead by 2015" predictions were definitely coming out strong by the end of 2010, not 2012. But you're right that the whole tablet hype cycle really peaked around 2012 with all those "death of print" thinkpieces. The timeline thing is tricky because once a bad prediction gets repeated enough, the year it first showed up gets fuzzy.