With electronics and the internet so prevalent in this day and age what lifespan do you give traditional print media. Not really talking about books since I believe they'll be around for quite a while to come - more talking about magazines and news papers. With news so easily available everywhere online and for free what incentive is there to keep buying print newspapers? Obviously the providers will keep making them as long as they keep selling but surely their days are numbered. Maybe it's just the later generations who still read print but enough that it stays afloat? Maybe some people just like a physical copy more? What do you think.

Then there's magazines and they're a completely different game. With some many forums and communities and content sources around the place you can easily get a steady stream of high quality, relevant (and often original) content related to whatever you want. How long do speciality magazines have left? You know the ones, those that you see in news agents. One issue a month full of all sorts of stuff about one specific topic like bikes or cars or fishing.

Is there any benefit to these (other than personal preference/anecdotal)? I guess they can used when there is no internet connection but even then pages and content can be cached etc etc and more and more people have internet while out and about anyway. Share your thoughts.

This thread is part of my initiate to start some non terrible (sorry but it's true) threads in offtopic that will hopefully contain some actual discussion. Don't shit it up.

I'm thinking that once the people who grew up only with print media die, there'll be no reason to keep producing it. It's a generational thing. The print forms are kept around for the convenience of the non-digital generations. Once they're gone, there'll be no reason to continue wasting money producing physical versions of their products. We're only becoming more and more connected to the digital world. 30 years down the line, when this trend is further along its asymptotic curve, it's hard to imagine this future will contain the traditional forms of print media (unless it becomes cool/trendy/nostalgic, like LPs and record players).

It's old vs new and once the old die, the new becomes the standard. You can extrapolate this dynamic to other variants of social change as well (religiosity will decrease, tolerance will increase etc.).

You guys don't think the technology is going to get better as it becomes more ubiquitous? You're making predictions about future scenarios based on current technologies.

Let's also remind ourselves that this topic isn't about books vs eBooks, it's about the future of newspapers and magazines.

You're still talking about books. We're not talking about books (I think you know that, but you're just fucking with me).

Sure, it's an important topic, but since Solax indicated in the OP that he wants us to discuss newspapers and magazines, that's what I've been sticking to.

Bringing up the current technological limitations of eReaders muddies the waters when one commentates on the future of newspapers and magazines (since nobody's using an eReader to get their newspaper stories - they go to the news websites).

It's no fun arguing with a troll. I can't be sucked into your vortex of nonsense.

Nup, not doing it - not getting baited.