Scenario 1 - Extinction of Traditional Books

2007

In 2007, Google's book scanning project brings more publicity for the e-book industry. More and more people become aware of the new possibilities of e-books. As people are already able to read newspapers online, download music and movies from Internet, they also start to realize the possibility that they could also read and download e-books anywhere at any time. Following the example of Sony, e-book reader manufacturers start utilizing the new possibilities of eInk–technology, and start focusing on developing the readability of e-book readers.

The first cellphones with rollable display for reading newspapers and books, launched by Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision gets lot of publicity worldwide. By the end of 2007, due to the instable situation in the Middle-East, the oil price is rising to almost 100 dollars per barrel and energy is more expensive than the past decades.

2008

In 2008 interest towards new e-book readers starts to increase and Sony and its competitors invests big amounts for large marketing campaigns. The new reader is praised by its reading features and Sony is constantly developing its e-book store, based on the same idea that iTunes has become a success. Apple is developing their e-book offering to respond the growing competition.

The growing concern of the global warming and the paper industry speeding the climate change, forces governments to make new strict environmental laws, and also the book readers start to realize the environmental benefits of e-books over printed books. Environmental activists get lot of publicity when campaigning for e-publishers and against paper industry.

In beginning of the 2008, United States and its allies attack to Iran and Syria, based on the information of terrorist collaboration by the governments. Because of the war, Russian disagrees with the methods used for war, and cuts off the gas to Europe as a respond.

2009

By the end of the 2009, when the e-book reader manufactures have seen promising sales figures, and many new e-book readers have come to the markets, the prices of the readers start to decrease. Traditional book publishers start to bring more e-books to the market and start to develop more interactive content to the e-books, including pictures, videos and sound.

E-book publishers are trying to promote their own e-book formats to be a break-through in the markets, but they are starting to realize that one common standard has to be created before e-books can really take-off. As a result of the co-operation of the e-books publishers and e-book reader manufactures one unified standard for e-book format is finally developed. When one standard format has been agreed, the publishers and e-book reader manufactures can focus more on the quality and features of their products, and the prices start to decrease.

In Christmas 2009, “the hit present” of the Christmas is an e-book reader and the sale rates are high especially in Europe, US and Japan.

2010

In 2010, the most active e-book buyers are educational institutions, libraries and the readers in the age of 16-45.

Authors are becoming more concerned about their intellectual rights, and publishes and many large IT companies are finally forced to start developing DRM that really secures copyrigths.

2011-2012

In 2012, the sales of the e-books reach the sales numbers of printed books in Europe, US and Japan. With the help of governmental support, libraries all over the world have increased the offering of the e-books, and the rent percentages of e-books and printed books are 50-50. The prices of the e-book readers have decreased remarkably in 5 years, and prices vary from €100-250, which is affordable to the majority of the people in developed countries. In 2012, European Union starts to promote the e-book as a main facility for learning. Their goal is to cut costs in education, e-books are not environmentally friendly, the distribution is extremely convenient and updates for older books are totally inexpensive.

Google has gone into a criticized partnership with Amazon were they agreed upon sharing technology and content to able to provide E-Books for a much lower price than competitors.

In 2012, one standardized DRM system has been developed by publishers and leading IT companies that has agreed to make their system available at low cost and let many manage the DRM. More and more publishers begin to use this low cost DRM system. This standard then soon becomes the industry standard that the price of e-books continue to go down as a majority of the price on e-books are paid to DRM system previously.

People have become more concerned about their privacy, and e-book stores have to focus on improving the privacy issues in next years.

2013-2015

Due to the e-book boom, the general interest in literacy has increased, and the active readers have started to create own communities for book reviews, ratings etc. Readers are now fully able to customize their own e-books, add own pictures, videos and sound to make an individual story out of every book.

The number of traditional book stores has decreased last years by 40%, and some them have started “Starbooks” e-book cafes, offering a meeting point for literature fans, for example to collaborate in writing in their e-book community or create one online in the cafe. At the same time, number of e-book shops have increased by 50%.

In 2014, yellow pages decide to abandon paper publishinging, and they go completely to electronic. The business model and value-chain of traditional publishers have changed. Publishing only ebooks decrease operational costs because paper, ink or energy is not needed, distribution is easier and there is no need for big storages.

2016-2017

In 2017, 90% of the books are in electronical format and only some types of the printed books are still published, for example the Bible, art books and cooking books. More advanced e-readers with the functionality for blind people also come to market.Cheap e-book readers, designed especially for developing world have become popular in Asia, together with increased literacy rate. The next generations of e-book readers is coming, especially in Japan people are started to download and read their e-books on their smart mobile phones.
By now people are able to read their ebooks online but also have the download ability to read their books when there is no internet access available.

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