I wonder if the historical model I should be researching is RCA, not Pocket Books?
“Thinking of ebooks and printed books as comparable is like assuming that anything conveyed by means of the written word is a poem; plays, novels, stories, film scripts, letters, shopping lists and text messages exist too. Publishers have got to stop thinking of their digital products as ‘books’, and start imagining more expansive ways of communicating information. Until then, the digital revolution hasn’t even begun.”
‘The ebook revolution hasn’t even begun’ : Gaby Wood, 30 March 2014, The Telegraph
##
I wonder if the historical model I should be researching is RCA, not Pocket Books? The argument could be made that the Consolidated Amazon Book Cheetah™ currently thinning the fat, slow publisher herd have more in common with General Electric of the 1910s and 1920s than with cheap pocket paperbacks that appeared in 1939. GE built the devices (RCA radios) while simultaneously developing the content and networks (NBC Red and Blue) that drove demand. The later success of television rode piggyback on the real revolution that had taken place decades earlier.
