While this may be difficult for you to digest,Cochrane’s January 18, 2012 blog entry, entitled, Tech growth and decline - why people just can't do the maths explains most of modern economics, and the concept is especially applicable to the eBook phenomena, its growth and permanence. Mathematics is man’s attempt to picture the real world through concepts that are both immutable and adjustable at the same time.
The idea that “exponential” applies to the process of stacking the “S” curves of new products one on top of the next to accelerate growth in perpetuity is one I was taught in economics classes at NYU a few decades ago. It wasn’t until I worked with venture capitalists that I learned how it works in reality. Moore’s Law is the prime evidence that all this exists in reality.
My explanation:
As one product begins to slow its growth, the technicians determine from continuous research what the next new product will be to replace it. Perpetual release of new versions continues until they finally make another breakthrough and that becomes the next big thing, along with its own growth curves. What Cochrane fails to comment on is that development is both horizontal AND vertical. Adjacent products are infected with the same growth imperatives from basic research, and spawn their own breakthroughs.
Applied to eBooks, this implies my previous prediction about the remaining lifespan of paper books was, indeed, incorrect. In another blog entry dated January 3, 2012, entitled It's the end of the line for the printed word, Cochrane presents his own conclusion, which I now agree with: paper books have about three years left, and the change will happen too fast for print publishers to adjust to. They are doomed.
