TIL that old article predicting tablets would kill paper books by 2015 was hilariously wrong

Found a 2010 Wired piece in a box of old magazines where they said tablets would make paper books obsolete in 5 years. I work in construction and back then I bought right into it. Now here in 2024 I stack more physical books on my nightstand than ever. My local bookstore in Portland still does twice the business they did in 2010. Has anyone else kept a collection of these old predictions just to see how silly they got?

2 comments

2 Comments

noah13523d ago

Saw a similar thing with people saying email would kill regular mail by 2010. Now I get more catalogs and coupons in my mailbox than ever before, plus all the spam email. In Portland you can see the same pattern with food carts. Everyone said they'd replace restaurants by now but we still got both doing fine. People like having options and predictions always miss how sticky old habits really are.

eva_lewis23d ago

Remember seeing a similar prediction about Netflix killing movie theaters by 2015 and here we are with both still around and packed. My buddy runs a small indie theater in Pittsburgh and he says people actually come out more now because they get tired of staring at screens all day. Funny how these tech predictions always assume people want the most efficient option instead of the one that feels good. Found a 2008 article in my dad's old files saying physical photo albums would be extinct in 3 years meanwhile my mom still fills three new albums every Christmas. Guess humans just like having stuff we can actually touch and flip through without a battery warning popping up.