When one can shrink an entire book store in to inches, or better still, deliver entire collection of books ever written to its audience like drops of rain from a cloud, then the coldness of digital intimacy will almost force people to turn to small corner book stores for that warm and cozy feeling of flipping pages and sipping coffee. There will be proliferation of digital media and every word that is produced will be available on a portable digital format, which everybody can afford and will have. I am not talking about my generation or even the one before me, but surely the one of my kids and their contemporaries will live in the digital life where paper will be a nostalgic medium.
Offices right now still use paper like insanity, where one tablet can make the data transfer and "on the go" viewing much less a hassle. Instead of print preview, you are always on the preview. Instead of jolting down ideas on diaries and eventually writing back to the word processor, things can move "run time".
Getting back to my dreams of sipping coffee with a paper back and looking out of the window into the rain.....the small shops will return to the scene and big brick and mortars that ate them will be eaten by an even smaller giant....
