Today everyone is concentrated on their cellular phone, laptop, e-reader, mp3 or tablet. Even the U.S. post office feels the sting as they have lost millions of dollars as society continues to use email messages instead of mailing a letter.
.
The world is experiencing a new type of economy due entirely to technology. "In the last fifteen years, the growth of the global computer network known as the Internet has facilitated the rapid emergence of online interactions of dispersed groups of people with shared interests. These online groups exhibit a wide range of characteristics and serve a variety of purposes, from small groups engaged in tightly focused discussions of specific topics, to complex created worlds with hundreds of simultaneous participants, to millions of users linked by an interest in markets or exchange networks for goods and information (Wilson, 2002).
.
Since the dot.com era first came into being, we have seen a shift slowly emerge from that of a financial system based on industry and manufacturing of more concrete products. We have developed into a more intrinsically grounded "service economy". In the past we would look forward to reading a physical book or newspaper to heighten our moments of recreation. We are still able to do so, only now we do so a lot differently "a result is that it is now more convenient for us as consumers and a huge economical advantage to the print industry. A huge cost saving for the publishing industry is that technology eliminates the cost of numerous shipping of documents back and forth. Technology allows publishers to economize a substantial amount of savings annually.
.
As students, we spend over $900 or more yearly on textbooks. Technology makes textbooks more affordable. There are now rental programs at colleges, sites online that allow you to find the best deal on used books, open source textbooks and e-books. Although publishers still have an upper hand when they engage in practices that drive up costs by constantly issuing new books to make used ones obsolete and bundling textbooks with non-optional CD-Rom disks or block textbook websites unless a passcode is purchased.
