With print books often cheaper than ebooks, whose sales stabilized at ~20% of total book sales, a look at the aftermath of Apple's ebook price fixing lawsuit
Publishing spent the 2010s fighting tooth and nail against ebooks. There were unintended consequences. Tweets: @tedgioia , @mobylives , @tekaldas , @tkingdot , @paulkrugman , @jamesrbuk , @gorskon , @ezraklein , @voxdotcom , @thepixiepages , @dandrezner , @irhottakes , and @timethief See also Mediagazer Tweets: Ted Gioia / @tedgioia : Why the predicted e-book revolution never happened. https://www.vox.com/... 12 years after the launch of the Kindle, printed books still represent 80% of the market. Dennis Johnson / @mobylives : Actually, paper sells far better than digital across all age groups, including boomers. https://twitter.com/... Timothy E Kaldas / @tekaldas : I just bought a heavy duty stapler and a ream of paper to print and read @SayighYezid's 360 page book on the role of Egypt's military in the economy. I'm half way through & highly recommend it. Also yes, this late millennial much prefers reading long form off paper over screens https://twitter.com/... Tracy King / @tkingdot : I'm Gen X so course I read both. Ebooks for public transport/travel, paper books for home or research. https://twitter.com/... Paul Krugman / @paulkrugman : OK, I learned something. I thought I was being cutting-edge by mainly reading ebooks. It turns out that this is a boomer thing, and younger people prefer paper! 1/ https://www.vox.com/... James Ball / @jamesrbuk : I can completely believe this. I only read paper books and my mum only reads Kindle. They're especially handy if your vision isn't great - lets you read any book comfortably at large type). https://twitter.com/... @gorskon : Young Boomer here. I tend to like ebooks for the same reasons (although being able to increase type size is important to me), but I still love paper books. So now I'm selective about which books I get in paper form and which as ebooks. For books I really love I buy both. https://twitter.com/... Ezra Klein / @ezraklein : “ebook sales seem to have stabilized at around 20 percent of total book sales, with print sales making up the remaining 80 percent” https://www.vox.com/... @voxdotcom : Ebooks aren't only selling less than everyone predicted they would at the beginning of the decade. They also cost more than everyone predicted they would — and consistently, they cost more than their print equivalents. https://www.vox.com/... Namie / @thepixiepages : I can see the pros of buying ebooks—the minimalism/cutting down on filling your space with too much “stuff” & it's probably environmentally better (?)—but books aren't just fun to read; they also lend such a cozy vibe to a space. You can relax knowing you're surrounded by friends https://twitter.com/... Daniel W. Drezner / @dandrezner : The Luddite in me, which has become more outsized over time, is so happy right now. https://twitter.com/... @irhottakes : I prefer real books for pleasure, but for textbooks and whatnot, the CTRL-F function for ebooks is quite handy. https://twitter.com/... @timethief : Publishers hoped that iBooks would do for books what iTunes did for music. It didn't quite work out that way. https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Publishers spent the 2010s fighting ebooks, and the turning point was the legal one: Apple's ebook price-fixing lawsuit broke the model where cheap digital editions were supposed to do to books what iTunes did to music. The related coverage shows the reversal was visible early — by 2015, e-book sales had fallen 10% in five months while print and bookstores held firm.
The result a decade after the Kindle launched is a stalemate that surprised both sides: ebooks plateaued near 20% of sales, print still carries roughly 80% of the market, and digital editions frequently cost more than their paper equivalents — the opposite of the disruption narrative.
First-order effects
- With the price-fixing settlement behind them, publishers now set ebook prices high enough that print is often cheaper, directly shifting purchase decisions back toward physical formats and the bookstores that sell them.
Second-order effects
- Digital demand didn't disappear — it rerouted through institutions: library ebook checkouts jumped 52% year over year, with libraries paying an average of $40 per copy under publisher lending restrictions.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, consumer ebook sales stay a capped minority channel while publishers monetize digital through controlled licensing — a structure that has already made intermediaries like OverDrive, which licenses content to libraries and schools, dramatically more valuable (per the New Yorker's reporting on vendor valuations).
The trend: The predicted ebook revolution inverted into publisher-controlled digital scarcity, with growth migrating from cheap consumer downloads to licensed library and institutional channels.