What if no one ever wrote a book?

What if no one ever wrote a book?

That's a good question, thanks to 'Anonymous', who commented with it.

If no one ever wrote a book, there are several things that would be different.

Our oral tradition would be much richer, because books are largely what people use to pass information to each other. Before books, we find that legends and folklore was much more common. If the oral tradition was so vast, we'd also need 'storytellers', or people to remember the tales and to pass them on, so the knowledge would get shared. Assuming there's still internet, there probably wouldn't be any real written language, because the languages that were spoken needed an alphabet primarily to pass the information on in written form. Without books, there wouldn't be a need for a written alphabet.

Without books, we'd lose an entire industry. There'd be no real need for publishers, or authors, or content editors or or or... Anyone involved in the process, basically. All those people would have to work in different sectors, perhaps in places that don't really fit their talents.

Also, writers would not be as much of a thing.

So, yeah. Without books, the world would suck.