Trade-Offs in Scarcity of Resources - Essay Example

The recent trends in the publishing industry have seen the introduction of eBooks to solve the problems associated with paperback books (Sheehan, 2013).
For a long time, books publication has used paper, manufactured from trees. Printing of all traditional books took place on paper, a by-product of trees. This led to the felling down of many trees as paper-producing companies struggled to satisfy the increased demand for paper. This is one of the major contributors to deforestation. However, as the demand for learning materials increased, there was a sharp rise in the demand for paper. Trees became scarcer, and with this scarcity price of logs shot up.

Subsequently, there was an increase in the production costs of paper, which they passed on to the publishing companies. Paper manufacturing companies also faced the problem of increased energy costs. The publishers on the other hand had two choices; passing the burden to the reader, who are either mostly students, or simply bearing the burden. The latter was inevitable, so books became more expensive. The production of books thus faced the problem of the scarce paper and scarce energy for production.

Publishers began researching alternative means of producing books. Due to the advent of the internet, the rise of eBooks and their popularity has reduced the costs of books. Through online book marketing sites, publishers upload books by different authors, which people assess online at a fee (Sheehan, 2013). This offers an opportunity for an expansive market as not only students purchase eBooks. Other interested people can pay and download the books too, which was not possible with the traditional versions. Read More