The future of publishing is determined in part by the hardware that’s available (and, of course, by the software, which I consider separately). A basic example: color image editing on a personal computer was not realistic until the first color monitors became both widely available and affordable, in the late 1980s. Another example: the failure of the early ebook industry was seen as in part because there were no e-readers available that were both comfortable to use as well as affordable. The first version of the Amazon Kindle retailed for $399. Apparently that was affordable. (Today’s entry point price for an Amazon e-reader is under $100, about 23% of the first Kindle pricing.)
By comparison, the first iPhone released in 2007 retailed for $499. The base price for 2019’s iPhone 11 is $699 — it’s an enormous achievement for a vendor to increase the price of its hardware over a dozen-year window.