What happens when you make words cheap and accessible to everyone

[Bern]

The Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting piece on How the Paperback Novel Changed Popular Literature.

Allen Lane stated that he “believed in the existence…of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it.” Seventy-five years later, we find ourselves in a situation not unlike Lane’s in 1935. Publishers are facing plummeting sales, and many are attempting to launch new models, chasing the dream to be the next Penguin.

Cheap electronic devices with immediate, wireless access to the world's literature may precipitate a similar shift in reading habits.