A key quote I remember from year 12 English from my teacher was that she would "never snuggle up to a computer screen to read a book".
Think again Miss. Welcome to the future, where you're going to have to adapt, or get out. With the close of many bookstores in response to the online revolution, is it necessarily such a bad thing?
The beauty of the the Internet is that there is infinite space available, i.e. there are no inventory costs. Everything is stored in what is called in the marketing world as 'mass customisation' whereby each customers experience with a company is tailored to their individual needs without the need for face-to-face interaction. Customers can access and search for what they want, what they might want and what they need easily and without the help of a customer service officer.
Essentially this online information marketplace is thriving - we don't need to leave our homes to purchase a book, or a song, a movie, or a TV show. We can access them when we want and how we want. The bad side to this, however, is the detriment of physical businesses who deal in things that are now available online: music stores, DVD rentals, and book stores. But couldn't this just be considered part of our business-based society - you snooze you lose, by this I mean that if you don't adapt to the current time, you're going to go down.
From Kelly, the key phrase that made me think was:
"When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied."
Just an interesting concept that I found was the virtual-train-station-supermarket, it's putting a twist on virtual shopping and all in the time you wait for your train:
It's interesting that you say that you're going to have to adapt (to new technologies) or get out... I think we're living at a time when technology still polarizes people. Our generation is completely comfortable with it, while the older generation has either, as you say, 'adapted' or resisted. But we won't see this divide for too much longer, in fifty years or so, there won't be anyone (at least in the West anyway) that hasn't been born into an era of technology. Every facet of our consumer lives will probably resemble Amazon's model of mass customisation...
ReplyDelete@jess: I think we're dealing with the digital divide here. Generations and various other groups of people are indeed polarised because of technology, and perhaps it is an 'adapt or get out' situation. However perhaps we need to consider society's influence on such things. Maybe if the masses decided they in fact did not want to adapt, technological innovation would be limited. This seems like a long shot though, especially with an up-coming generation of early adopters and tech-savvy nannas. An interesting thought though.
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