The Ebook Hard Sell
Published at 09:00 on 23 April 2026
This, I think, is how the capitalists are going to force more widespread adoption of ebooks (which are otherwise a questionable value proposition):
They will, in other words, deliberately under-produce (or, better yet, not produce at all) real paper books, books that give one the full right of ownership. Then, when customers understandably shy away from buying artificially scarce items at artificially inflated prices, announce that “the market has spoken” and there is no longer significant “customer interest” in traditional paper books.