Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)
Charles StrossI suspect losing paper maps but gaining GPS and online maps is a similar step function: maps still exist, but they're vastly more useful, not to say permanently up to date, in their new form. Again, I won't be shedding any tears, but I'll keep a paper road atlas in the back of my car for another few years, I think, Just In Case.
Charles StrossBack before the internet we had a name for people who bought a single copy of our books and lent them to all their friends without charging: we called them "librarians".
Charles StrossWhat I really think is that our current model of copyright is fundamentally broken. We badly need to replace it with a different system for remunerating creators, which gets it the hell out of the face of the public (who were never aware of it to begin with in the pre-internet dead tree era). Unfortunately, the current copyright model is enshrined in international trade treaty law, making it almost impossible to work around.
Charles Stross