As expected, paper and forest products continue to decline due to digitalization, as the world transit toward fourth industrial revolution (4IR) Industry 4.0. Global consumers continue to adapt digitization and digital lifestyle and equivalent digital products, from physical journaling to digital journaling (where in the first place no paper is needed, together with stationary consumption). Physical book sales continue to decline, but do not get me wrong, the digital equivalent is rising, for those who forge reading habits continue to read, but shift to digital products.
Newspapers and magazines, without doubt, have similar trends. If the existing publisher does not possess a website capable of drawing a huge amount of readers and the online advertisement provides enough revenue, for sure, it matters for time, with more publishers getting closed down. Nothing wrong with the world, it just digital media rise their role and unless traditional media know how to adapt it for the best and capable to come out the solid reason why people buy, such as something we saw like in the CD album, to provide with lot of complementary and bonus material, in doubt it will make the people now days to buy physical media while everyone is know the world is toward digital media consumption.
New habits can be forged if need to, and once you get used to it, it is very hard for you to roll back to the past. The beauty of digital media such as epub books can be change the size, font, dark theme mode for more comfortable reading, to include color highlighter and allow make note on the pages and texts, and inclusive of hyper link content and include multimedia content that physical books can not carry.
Paper and forest products dead? Not so soon yet, as certain industries and practices require some sort of printing and publications for a variety of purposes. But for the mass global consumption trend, it is very hard to reverse it, and it is time for the publications company to reimagine how they can adapt their strengths and know-how in digital media production and produce something people are willing to pay for.
E-SPIN Group in the enterprise ICT solution supply, consultancy, project management, training and maintenance for corporation and government agencies did business across the region and via the channel. Feel free to contact E-SPIN for your project requirement and inquiry.
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- Paper and Forest products industry in the digital age
- Paper elimination trend and impact on those sectors
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