There's been more and more of a push towards trades for years now. I used to think that was the future, since I worked in a book store and saw firsthand how they were bringing in all kinds of new readers and people who would never consider entering a comic shop.
But over the years I started to notice some things:
1) we were selling LOTS of Vol. 1's, but not many Vol. 2's and 3's, and numbers greater than that we usually didn't even bother stocking.
2) even when Marvel books got relaunched, unless there was a major status quo shift like ANAD Cap and Thor, it was still the original Marvel NOW Vol. 1's that were selling. Lots of KSD Captain Marvel Vol. 1, but none of the relaunched runs, for example, same with Ms. Marvel and Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl which had popular Vol. 1's.
3) people had a lot of interest in Marvel Unlimited and asking for DC equivalents, but very few seemed interested in buying collections of older material, of any kind, unless they were looking for a specific character and wanted a recommendation.
4) there wasn't as much of a problem with people buying Vol. 1 and just never coming back as the above would imply: in reality, they'd usually come back for Vol. 1's of other characters instead.
So anecdotally, I now think that TPB market is actually NOT as sustainable as I thought, since the books that consistently sold well are New 52, Marvel NOW, Rebirth, and certain ANAD Vol. 1's. It's possible people were buying the future volumes online instead, but that goes even further to suggest to me that what said actually IS the better direction, which is the opposite of what the companies are going for. They should be writing stories that keep you coming back month after month instead of ones that make you want to read/buy in 6-issue chunks.
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