"Wow, they still have these here." Walking through Paris, a kiosk packed with newspapers and magazines caught my eye. The remark came from a team leader traveling with me on the business trip. The words "still have" stuck with me. Wasn't this a scene familiar to us not long ago? There was a time when people bought newspapers at stands outside subway stations and scanned magazine covers as they passed by. At some point, such scenes became hard to find. Newspapers and magazines have not disappeared. They have simply moved inside the smartphone.
Paris kiosks have not escaped the changes of the times either. By 2004, the number of operators had fallen to 266. Rather than remove them, the city of Paris chose to keep them alive. It lowered usage fees and allowed the sale of beverages and souvenirs. Between 2018 and 2019, 360 kiosks were replaced with new ones, and since 2025 some also serve as tourist information centers. This was not about turning back the clock to save print newspapers, but about finding a way for the kiosks to survive.
The bookstores on the streets were striking as well. Walking around, one comes across neighborhood bookstores large and small with surprising frequency. This, too, cannot be explained by romance alone. In France, bookstores must follow the prices set by publishers, and discounts are capped at 5%. For online orders of books under 35 euros, a minimum shipping fee of 3 euros is required. The aim is to prevent neighborhood bookstores from having to compete with giant online retailers. The purpose is clear: to maintain a dense network of bookstores across every region.
What is interesting is not whether print books and print newspapers survive. It is that as long as kiosks and bookstores remain, media still exists before our eyes. The stand displays newspapers I did not search for, and the bookstore shelves hold books no algorithm recommended. A magazine I had no intention of buying catches my attention, and in a bookstore I wandered into by chance I discover an author I have never seen before. The smartphone only picks out what I am likely to enjoy; it does not give me the chance to run into the unexpected.
These chance encounters are possible only if someone has created the content. New articles to hang at the stand, new books to place on bookstore tables must keep being made for serendipity to happen. Behind the vast data that artificial intelligence learns from are the reporters who wrote the articles, the authors who wrote the books and the photographers who took the pictures. News organizations and publishers that once earned revenue from these creative works are now faltering as they surrender traffic and sales to AI services. Content keeps being absorbed into AI, yet the sustainability of the industry that produces it is left out of the discussion. Nurturing AI as a new industry matters, but the people and the industries that create the content forming AI's foundation must survive as well.
"They still have these here." The remark sounded like admiration that old things remain in Paris, but on returning home, the question points back at us instead. "As much as how fast we grow AI, who will keep producing the knowledge and culture that AI learns from?" That is why the question posed by the old bookstores and kiosks of Paris is unexpectedly about the future.
