At a recent presentation, I stressed my usual admonition that printers should not expect that an improving economy will increase print demand or make it easier for print businesses to make money.

"But Dr. Webb, won't a rising tide raise all boats?"
"Does it really matter when the competitors are flying planes?"

There's a place for boats, of course, but it's very clear that alternative media are faster, not limited by the locations of navigable bodies of water, and can be more flexible.

A next wave of nasty communications change is in process, and I can't emphasize enough the new urgency this places on print business owners. We've seen what previous waves have done to our industry. A tsunami may be forming.

What's different? Broadband is about to get cheaper, still. Communications providers are now offering programs where their plans are tied to the user, not each device. This has been the case for most wireless services for a while, but now it is becoming part of the cellular networks.

The founder of Skype, the free Internet calling service bought in 2011 by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, has started a company called FreedomPop. I recently bought the USB stick for this product that works with laptops. For one one-time payment of just $50, I now have access to 500mb of free bandwidth per month. I'm paying an extra $3 per month for the faster service. The stick worked with my Windows 7 laptop and my Linux netbook, flawlessly. The company is selling sleeves for iPhones that will allow users to use its free plan and preserve paid data limits. While I have a data plan for my iPhone, there are times where I need to use my computer in a place where Wi-Fi is not available. Not every airport has free Wi-Fi, or the free Wi-Fi networks are clogged with users.

But think of that statement... we can now find Wi-Fi almost everywhere, and it's so ubiquitous that retail establishments, libraries, and public spaces don't even make a big deal about it anymore. Any place where people wait for service, including doctors' offices, auto service centers, shopping malls, educational institutions, and others, have free Wi-Fi. My, how things have changed. The explosive growth of iPads and the growing number of other tablets would not have been as explosive or valuable if Wi-Fi was not easily available and at virtually no cost to users.

Back in 2010, at the Print CEO Forum, I discussed the three numbers 30, 60, and 100 in my presentation "Turbulent Path to 2020: Are You Ready for a Revolution?" (see the article; download the slides; download the audio). What I described there is well underway, and it appears that the rate of change is about to intensify. My 2010 assessment of the timing of the change may have been too conservative. Few people believe this, but I am a conservative, skeptical, and often too-optimistic forecaster. Knowing that, I do my best to let the data do the talking. I hate it when data yells at me.

Our Competitors are Flying Planes and Drones, We're Still in Boats

There are many reasons why the media shift looks like it is getting into higher gear: