The good folk over at Mequoda are predicting that information products will be digital by the year 2025.

Note that it’s one thing to say that all content will be available digitally, but it’s another thing to say that it will only be available digitally. Which is what they’re predicting.

In 15 years, no one will be printing newspapers, magazines and books — everything will be digital and delivered immediately.

I would agree that almost all material will be available in a digital version by 2025, but I don’t agree that content will not also continue to be available in print.

I’ve been in publishing for about 25 years, and I’ve seen lots of predictions about the demise of print. I also ride a commuter train every day, and while I see more and more laptops, PDAs, Kindles and so on, people still prefer — by a substantial majority — to read print on paper.

I propose several reasons for this.

1. Print folds, screens do not. There are advances in foldable screens, and we may get to the point where you can have a piece of “digital paper” in your shirt pocket that will display whatever you like, but I don’t think we’ll be there in 15 years, and we certainly won’t have widespread adoption by then.
2. You can take notes on print. There are ways to bookmark and make notes in digital documents, but they’re not nearly as convenient as scratching an underline in a book, or writing in a margin.
3. Little screens stink. You can put a lot on a blackberry, but it will never be the same as stretching out a newspaper or opening a large coffee table book and looking at the photos.
4. Print is more portable and versatile. Blackberries and Kingles are small and portable, but you don’t them to get rained on, or fall in the pool (or the toilet), or get exposed to salt water while you’re fishing. In short, there are places you can take a piece of disposable paper that you might not want to take your $300 electronic gizmo.
5. Reading print is easier on the eyes. This will get better over time, but there’s a big difference between reading reflective light off paper and reading a computer screen. Print is more relaxing.
6. It’s easier to loan or borrow a book.
7. Print is easier to scan or flip through. Quick. Find the definition of “oolitic.” You can type it into a search engine or go to dictionary.com, but it’s a whole lot easier to grab the dictionary off the shelf and find the word.
8. Print has a more stable location. We’ve all had this sort of experience. “I’m looking for this passage in Strunk and White, and it was about a third of the way down the left side of the page …. Ah, here it is.” We’ve also had the opposite experience of trying to find something on a web site that has moved.

I’m sure you could add many more reasons why print is preferable. Technology will continue to close the gap between the online and the paper experience, but I think it will be a very long time before all content becomes exclusively digital.