There is an interesting thing happening in the paper industry at the moment (from an investment perspective) and it lead to an interesting enough debate with one of the asset managers I know on the subject of a paperless or (paper less) world.
Since January a number of the investment banks have been upgrading their expectations for the paper sector – both glossy and non-glossy. They’ve talked about consolidation of the sector, price increase being pushed through and a generally more rosy economic outlook.
I kicked off the debate arguing that the iPad and a number of these tablet equivalents being rolled out by Apple, HP, Google etc was likely to be the death knell for the sector. Why would you buy a newspaper or magazine if you can get it in high quality, digital format on the tablet?
The asset manager I was talking to countered that the world had said the same thing about the “paperless office” a decade ago and in fact there is now more paper being used in the office environment than there was when people made the prediction.
On top of that he felt it was unlikely that people would ever choose to read something like a textbook on a slate or iPad type device.
Both are fair points – humans never quite do what people expect them to!
However I thought about it a bit more and I realised that we’ve become an increasingly “regulated” world. Take FICA as an example – I’m in the process of buying a house at the moment and every party along the way is adamant they must have a certified copy of my ID, rates and water account, salary slips, a menu of what I ate for breakfast etc.
The fact that I couldn’t have gotten the contract – which the lawyer is now explaining to me – without having given all the documentation to the previous person in the chain seems to have been forgotten.
These days we have FICA, RICA, King III, Sarbanes-Oxley etc – as an aside how many bloody forests have been cut down to teach people to care about the environment as guided in King III?
But I digress…
… My question is this – with tech like the iPad coming online with such rich visual functionality and browsing why would anybody spend money printing out newspapers and magazines anymore?
Sure it’s not a short-term change but surely tech is going to continue to change the way people consume these kinds of media?
On his second point I’d argue:
- I work for one of the largest magazine and newspaper printing groups in the country. I’m 28, a professional (snigger you know what I mean), own my own business as well – I haven’t read a magazine or newspaper from cover to cover except perhaps FHM.
- The last 20 books I have read have all been on my kindle
- If I want to read an analyst or annual report I download it off the internet but I don’t print it. If I get a hard-copy of the report it goes in the bin unopened.
- My work and home PC’s aren’t even attached to printers anymore and in fact I had a blank moment remembering how the printer worked when I had to use it last night to print the data for the juniors science project
I dunno – what are the thoughts out there? Paperless world or paper-less world?
———————
Business and gifting rewards -ewards Click Here