Ballmer’s Wrong, Print is Already Dead
June 6, 2008
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer predicted today that print will be dead in ten years.
There will be no media consumption left in ten years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.
Ballmer is off by at least ten years since at least the first part of this is true today. Whether the final output is screen or paper, there is no significant media left that isn’t “delivered over an IP network”. Print as a fundamental distribution medium is already dead.
Information is produced in whatever format is most convenient to the producer, moved into a digital network (open or closed), and output in whatever format is most useful to the consumer. But the final output is far less important than the intermediate phases of aggregation and distribution which are already entirely digital.
On the other hand, print as an output format is not going to be gone in ten years. Some people prefer print. Some situations make print a better solution. Sometimes print is just fun (candles are still sold, after all). As long as any of those are true, some media will still be delivered to consumers in print.
But all of that information and media will pass through digital networks before delivery. It already does. Companies that are looking for opportunities in the death of print have missed the point that as the fundamental distribution medium, it’s already dead. The change isn’t coming 10 years from now, or five, or even tomorrow. It’s already here.
Newspapers or magazines will continue their decline. Print as a whole will become less common even for output. But the details of that rate of change are incidental to the fundamental change has already taken place. Any company waiting ten years for this has already missed the point.
July 6, 2008 at 4:12 pm
[...] Postful insightfully observes that all content is already aggregated and distributed digitally and is only pushed to print for [...]
September 2, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Very spot on article and very true. I used to be in the printing industry (about 30 years) mostly in prepress and for the last ten years of it digital prepress and direct-to-plate. I am now in a different career entirely and while sometimes I miss it, I realize that now there is really nothing to go back to anymore. It’s gone. Most people do their own stuff nowdays and then give the complete files to the printer to RIP output and that’s it. No real art or craft to any of it anymore. The glory days in the printing business ended a couple of decades ago, and it’s slowly petering out, little by little. I myself decided not to wait around to be downsized…..
September 2, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Without the craft and artistry in an industry, the good people leave and new students aren’t interested. At which point, the industry is left focusing on rote tasks because there’s no one left who can handle anything more complex. And when you’re left with rote tasks, the only real option is for the processes to be automated. This trend is accelerating faster and faster every day. The declines we’ve seen in print employment over the last couple of decades are nothing like what we’re about to see over the next. I’m glad you made it out.