>>>One of the things I like about reading a newspaper as opposed to reading the news online is that I encounter things I wouldn't necessarily read online. I scan the whole paper (part at breakfast, part at lunch), stopping to read what catches my interest. I may read a paragraph of one article, a photo caption from another, all of a third. I just don't see an e-reading format lending itself to that kind of reading, at least not anytime soon.
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>>Tamar,
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>>What makes you think those things would no longer be available to you? An e-universe (sorry for the clunky invented word) will contain more information, not less.
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>As I said, not anytime soon. Someday, yeah, the format will get there, but I don't think we're close yet to e-readers that offer anything like the paper experience. When I think of all the places I open a book or magazine or newspaper, and all the different ways I read them, I think technology has quite a catch-up job to do.
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>I'll also point out that radio and TV were going to kill newspapers and didn't. TV was going to kill radio. VCRs were going to kill movie theaters. Etc., etc., etc. Instead, each technology finds its niche.


I didn't know radio and TV were expected to kill newspapers, but will bow to your seniority ;-). (All right, all right, you're a "younger chick," by a year). TV was expected to kill radio, which to a great extent it did. Heard any good dramas on the radio lately? Radio hasn't gone away but it sure took a hit.

I don't remember an expectation that VCRs were going to kill movie theaters. They were an alternative way of watching movies (and TV shows), and they did have an adverse impact on movie theater attendance. DVD has had an exponentially larger impact. Not only don't you have to deal with showtime schedules, $5 popcorn, $4 soda, and patrons who chatter through the movie, answering their cell phones even, you actually get more on the DVD -- subtitles, deleted scenes, commentaries, etc.

There are still movies I want to experience in the theater. Maybe I just can't wait, or maybe I think it has to be seen on the big screen, or maybe I just want to get out of the house. But most of the time Netflix is just fine. Will movie theaters go away? No. But it's a crumbling model.

I do believe paper newspapers will go away. Completely. Gone, fini, kaput. The information will still be there but it will be in electronic form, not hand delivered on paper. If you watch the New York Times at all -- which I mention only in passing was the ONLY major U.S. newspaper with a circulation gain last year, and that was from the national edition -- you will see that they have been shifting to the binary era for at least the last three years. It's happening whether you like it or not.