Your Answer ▼ According to the sales data, the sales of printed newspapers and books have decreased over the past 20 years. It is because people were able to read some news articles or books online for free. Since this trend is expected to continue, some people think that we can read everything we want costlessly in the near future. There are some reasons why they expect this new environment to occur. First, people do not want to pay costs for reading newspapers or books any more. If they have multiple options of news articles or books, most of them would choose a cheaper one. Second, reading things online is more convenient. This is because we do not need to bring printed newspapers or books to somewhere. People always carry their smartphones or tablets and these electronic devices allow them to read things in any places and any time. However, I do not think that all online newspapers or books will be available for free. This is because people still wish to read high quality news articles or books. For example, we cannot read all the news articles from New York Times for free, and there are many people who have been paying the costs to read decent news articles. Although there will be less people who purchase printed newspapers or books, there will be people who wish to pay for high quality online newspapers or books. Therefore, I do not entirely agree with the statement that everything will be available online without costs. Thoough printed newspapers or books may disappear in the future and there are online articles and books available for free, some people will be willing to pay for high quality writings even in the future. |