A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Instead of going out and buying a packaged book of which there have been five thousand copies printed, you will go to the telephone, describe your interests, your needs, your problems, and say you're working on a history of Egyptian arithmetic. You know a bit of Sanskrit, you're qualified in German, and you're a good mathematician, and they say it will be right over. And they at once xerox, with the help of computers from the libraries of the world, all the latest material just for you personally, not as something to be put out on a bookshelf. They send you the package as a direct personal service. This is where we're heading under electronic information conditions. Products increasingly are becoming services.
“Predicting Interactive Communication via the Internet”, TV Appearance on This Hour Has Seven Days, CBC-TV with Robert Fulford (1966), in McLuhan Speaks Transcript, p 3, reprinted in Understanding Me (2003), p 101
Year: 1966
↪ Also at #1241, #1790, #5644
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan