The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

by Kevin Kelly

Real-time books, ditto. In predigital days I bought printed books long before I intended to read them. If I spied an enticing book in a bookstore, I bought it. At first, the internet deepened my hefty backlog because I encountered more and more recommendations online. When the Kindle came along, I switched to primarily purchasing only digital books, but I kept the old habit of purchasing ebooks whenever I encountered a great recommendation. It was so easy! Click, got it. Then I had an epiphany that I am sure others have had as well. If I purchase a book ahead of time, it just sits in the same place that a book I have not bought sits (in the cloud) but in the paid bucket instead of the unpaid bucket. Why not just leave it in the unpaid bucket? So now I don’t purchase a book until I am ready to read it in the next 30 seconds. This sort of just-in-time purchasing is the natural consequence of real-time streaming.