Steve Jobs can kiss my petutie.He said this to the New York Times in reference to why the Amazon Kindle e-reader will fail:
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
Tech people are so quick to be doomsayers for all of us Luddites still loving (and basing our livings on) the printed word. Jobs’s statement is flawed in several ways. One, he doesn’t cite the source of this “forty percent” figure. I can only assume he’s alluding to recent NEA studies that show a decline in the percentage of people reading for pleasure. Fine. But this does not substantiate a sweeping statement like “people don’t read anymore.” In my experience, habitual readers show no signs of stopping. Has he seen the piles of books at my mom’s house? Does he want to come help Brian and I organize the dozens of new books that find their way into our tiny apartment each month? People are reading, and some people are reading a lot!
Also, as a science-minded person, Jobs should recognize the advantage that an e-reader has for those needing quick, portable access to heavy textbooks and manuals. I believe that’s the biggest selling point for these devices, be they the Kindle or otherwise, and I have no idea why a tech company CEO would be discounting that.
In conclusion, Steve Jobs is wrong and books will never die. So there.
If you have oodles of time, all you readers out there, you might take a look at the New Yorker article on the topic of decreasing readership.
The New York Times interview
Photo of Steve Jobs at Macworld on Jan. 15 by Jeff Chiu/AP Photo
14 comments:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Steve Jobs works for Apple. Apple makes computers. Computers are for sending and receiving information. Aside from videos and music files, ALL OF THAT INFORMATION IS WRITTEN DOWN. Even the commands on the operating system that supports the video and music files are WRITTEN DOWN. The interview that you're quoting from, Carrie, is WRITTEN DOWN. What the hell does Steve Jobs think we're doing right now as we READ this blog?
I haven't succeeded yet, but my resolution this year is to give up reading. I figure I'll have a lot of time on my hands, so probably I'll take up smoking.
That's interesting, Matt. You and I can discuss that later. But seriously, as much as I'm opposed to reading books on electronic devices, they would be convenient for reading queries and manuscripts. Much lighter to carry around and less bulky than a laptop (mine at least). As it is, I hate reading off a computer screen, but if it could made not to strain my eyes so much, I'd do it more often.
Man, I'm so glad y'all have all this time to read! Reading From Peppermint Creek is just about all the reading I've done for the last two weeks! :)
Snark aside, e-readers are never going to kill books, but under the right conditions, they could succeed, particularly among frequent travelers and urbanites who use mass transit, for whom having a light, compact reader that could hold several texts would be very appealing. In addition, the aesthetic trade-off would have to be minimal (i.e., it would have to look, if not like a real book, pleasing and not cause additional eye strain), and the cost would have to be low enough that buying an e-book would be preferable. Lord knows what this will mean for publishing, but then editors aren't as superfluous as A&R people, so it's unlikely that e-books and e-readers could ever have the effect on publishing that MP3s and MP3 players have had on the music industry.
Matt, you're right, and no matter the content, there is still CONTENT, and for that you need editors to find, acquire, and edit said content.
Brian, I'm so glad you realize Steve Jobs is such a blockhead that he can only be reached through ALL CAPS.
I don't know about your house, but I don't see piles of books around here. There are no piles just neat stacks. Some times stacked in the order I read them. Sometimes stacked in the order I am going to read the newer ones. But they definitely not piled.
I almost said "stacks" but I liked the imagery of "piles." I in no way meant to insult your housekeeping. :)
Besides, with all your new bookshelves it's really more like "neat rows" anyway.
He'll have a different statistic when he launches the ireader. Or the iphone that also functions as a reader. Maybe it does already?
All I know is that I really need one of these to improve my quality of life: http://ijam.es/. Even if you've never traveled to Spain, it's still a tiny bit funny.
This is a perfect example of why I do not own a MAC. From what I can see the pollsters managed to ask an entire 1,300 people about their reading habits. This does not impress me. As for the Kindle, I'm going to refrain from having an opinion until the quirks of the program are ironed out. However, from where I sit today there cannot be anything as satisfying as an actual book. Here's to piles, stacks, boxes too heavy to move, and buying books for a third time because you think it'll be OK to lend them out, just to have them be "misplaced".
I live outside the world of writers and editors and I would have guessed the percentage of people who read one book a year or none at all to be much higher than 40%. Yes, I do read, but most people do not or not often. Sad but true.
Also I have tried a couple of the new e-readers and they do not use the same technology as computer screens. The pixel density is much higher and they are not bright like LCD. They are much easier on the eyes. The key will be to have enough titles available.
Also I would like to say if I had been getting 10 comments on a post I would still be interested in keeping up my blog.
Everyone I know looks but never leaves comments.
Good job Carolyn.
Steven, it's only because my friends work in offices and are bored. :)
The Rebuttal:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/business/27digi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
On the other hand, I would like to quote from an unedited chapter four from my unpublished, unfinished, somewhat ill-conceived novel:
I decided to switch to screenplays, thinking they were where I would find my fortune and my fame. Screenplays made a lot of sense because nobody read anymore. I didn’t read anymore. A 400-page book took eight hours to read but only two hours to watch. No, nobody read anymore: Magazines lost their text and were now glossy photo albums; bookstores were transforming into coffee shops and singles meeting places; even the pedestrian walk lights that used to blink “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” were replaced by a red hand and a white man. We’d entered an Age of Leisure and reading required far too much effort to be considered leisure.
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