I always believe in one day, paperless society is possible and we can stop chopping down trees to make it. This article talks about current products in the market and what is general trend of consumers of manga in USA. I was wondering if same thing is occurring in Japan right now as this article was published. Manga in Japan is very big business and I am not too surprised if the industry is most reluctant to switch to e-manga reading culture that is on the rise on rest of the world.
It will repeat the same problem that Naptster started years ago, giant and clumsy Japanese corporations find themselves outfoxed by small nimble software that enables fans in Japan to read manga electronically and swipe memory cards at drop of the hat to exchange manga datas scanned by people who believed in traditional manga format will endanger world ecology. No doubt the Japanese were moving torwards e-manga which I approved a lot but it is rather at slow pace, signifying more resistance to the change of medium.
Sounds too fantastic? Maybe. But never underestimate prosumers (refer to Revolutionary Wealth by Alvin Toeffler) power to influence market.
Cheers.
