“So, in the next century there will be no more books. It takes too long to read, when success comes from gaining time. What will be called a book will be a printed object whose “message” (its information content) and name and title will first have been broadcast by the media, a film, a newspaper interview, a television program, and a cassette recording. It will be an object from whose sales the publisher (who will also have produced the film the interview, the program, etc.) will obtain a certain profit margin, because people will think that they must “have” it (and therefore buy it) so as not to be taken for idiots or to break (my goodness) the social bond! The book will be distributed at a premium, yielding a financial profit for the publisher and a symbolic one for the reader.” – Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, 1981
