I’m about to go on a tear so it’s worth saying that all of what I’m writing are my own opinions and in no way whatsoever reflect the opinions or policies of my employer.

Any new technology can have a side effect of making an entire industry irrelevant. Every time an industry is on the brink they try to plead for their own survival. Their tone and message is predictable, “you’ll miss our profession when it’s gone”. But of course, the profession never disappears only the institutions that used to enable it which are no longer relevant. These Institutions cannot survive in a new world so they scream to save their business model and claim that their profession is what is at risk.

I love journalism, and music, and I’m a total font geek but I just can’t stand newspapers, record labels, and these god forsaken font ["foundries"](http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2009/07/19/broken-record/).

Let me get this straight. Your business model is to create fonts, **once**, and then license them on a per-use basis. I can’t be the first one to tell you **THAT ISN’T GONNA FUCKING WORK ANYMORE**.

@font-face has the side effect of invalidating your whole business model by driving demand for ubiquitous free and open fonts. I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. The world is cruel, and you’re fucked.

Print publications bought your fonts because they had fairly high production costs already and adding a little on top wasn’t going to break them. But this is the web, content is ubiquitous and free so the tools to create it have to be ubiquitous and free as well.

To steal a little from [Clay Shirky](http://www.shirky.com/), your industry is now going to suffer from mass-amatuerization. Font creation will not die with the foundries, there is going to be more font creation than there ever has been in human history, it’s just going to be open and free. The cost of producing a font is nearly zero. There is labor involved but the tools are ubiquitous and mostly free while distribution is a non-issue. Now that **anyone** can create a font and quality is determined solely by the creators talent, and we can actually **use** open fonts in the web content we create, it is safe to expect an explosion in the creation of fonts.

There is no technology that can save your business model because it pre-dates the web. The web changed the world you live in and you don’t get to change it back. If you don’t believe me you should have a chat with some former stock photographers.