Die Argumentation in dem verlinkten lesenswerten Interview von Matt Mason ist in etwa so, wie ich sie auch oft wähle: Die zugrunde liegenden Bedürfnisse der Menschen sind mehr oder weniger konstant, aber die technischen Möglichkeiten haben sich geändert. Daher müssen die Unternehmen sich und ihre Produkte, also ihre Problemlösungsangebote anpassen. Die das nicht tun, haben zu Recht keinen wirtschaftlichen Erfolg. Da helfen dann auch alle Argumente auf der Werteebene nichts …

► Matt Mason: Some thoughts on the future of books

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What happened to the music industry wasn’t a calamity. Behavior changed as technology changed. The business of people making music and coming up with new business models around music is in great health. The calamity was something that happened to the big record labels that didn’t respond to these changes fast enough, because changing your entire business model is hard to to do.

The only thing publishers can do is stay on top of how people are actually using books and respond accordingly (the big news: More people are reading books on cellphones than on eReaders, because the device is already there. It’s like Woody Allen once said “80% of success is showing up.”). They need to keep adding as much value as they can to the process of making a book, rather than trying to create new distribution bottlenecks that in reality are meaningless. People will keep paying authors and paying for books. It’s authors who will decide which publishers stay in business, because they will only work with those who are really helping them get their message to people and adding value to the creative process.

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