I agree that online publishing poses a great threat to newspapers which is lethal because a newspaper is a bundled good; I don’t think people will read all the content of a newspaper because no one is interested in all the different parts. In addition, many information of newspapers is ephemeral, everyone wants to get the most accurate news.  Online publication offers both unbundling and immediacy, therefore it’s more attractive to readers. Moreover, the online resources can cover a huge amount of information which would take the place of the demand for reference books. One of the most famous information resource is Wikipedia.

 The reason that Rupert Murdoch have said that the Kindle will kill the book industry is that Amazon  is charging a very low price for many of the books that it sells for downloading to the Kindle.

However, the printed book also has some significant advantages over the online book. For example, it is easier to read, underline, and to go back and forth in. We have get used to the traditional way of reading, this is hard to replace. Readers enjoy the feeling of reading a real book, and sometimes read online materials is painful. In short, I don’t think e-books can take the place of traditional books in a short time. But in the future, who knows?

Relative reference:
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/02/will-printed-books-soon-be-obsolete-posner.html