These generation labels are for convenience btw, it’s all happening messily sort of parallel. Third generation. New rebundled forms emerge. Early chaotic mashup and collage pidgins give way to true deep-digital creoles. Threads on twitter are a good example. Instagram stories...
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Most people think either big Heidelberg type offset printers OR home/office class laser printers when they think "print"... both breeds are gonna die out mostly. It's the production digital printer that will take over what remains of the future, diminished, but way higher tech.
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It's not an artisan/hobby tech like letterpress. It's a high-tech sector. Right now, it's fueled almost entirely by... well direct-mail spam use cases. But I'm hoping it manages to shrink gracefully while retaining high-end production capability.
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If you *like* paper and print, start thinking in terms of short-run, bespoke, personalized, high-quality and rich printed materials. That's why I'm very interested in things like zines, short-run indie comics, board games, card games etc. Collectively they represent the future.
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I don't know the latest numbers, but right now, I'd guess the POD (print-on-demand) high end digital print industry is 80% direct mail junk stuff, 15% print-on-demand books, and 5% "long tail" use cases. I'm hoping those numbers shift to 5%, 15%, and 80%... ie reverse.
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There's problems to be solved along the way. Back when I was in the industry, though the equipment *could* do anything (rich, full-color, short-run, with variable data in each copy), the most interesting print jobs were the least profitable.
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What the industry *liked* to print was medium run-length (few 100 to 1000) low-area coverage (5% of paper covered with ink) with only a few colors. Going the other extreme tended to be both unprofitable and high stress on the equipment. I hope they've solved both problems.
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Perhaps now true for books which are mostly text. My experience of full color picture books is the cost is 2x what I would pay in a bookstore for similar content. That includes printing books and hosting on their website but not shipping and taxes.
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What, you guys still haven't solved all those problems and licked the fuser heating type issues??? I'm very disappointed in you :)
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