Time is sort, I really belive that, 10 or 20 yrs max.
Printing is a very, very expensive industry. It's an industry that can't survive on charity handouts. The watchtower has also shot itself in the foot, having spent 100 years claiming that it's financial stability was a sign of God's support. It also has shot itself in the other foot by declaring itself the provider of spiritual food in the form of literature.
Financially and legally, the WT in the western world was forced to drop charges for literature to maintain charitable status (not for profit), They shot themselves in a third foot that was totally unnecessary....the foot didn't even exist,,,, instead of admitting that literature was now free for legal ressons they chose to be deceitful by stating the decision was new light, jesus said come take life's water FREE and so no more charges! I remember the letter being read out as do most JW's in the west. (Ironically in UK bethel we made literature for africa at night and they still had prices on i.e. they were still being sold in the 2000's to the poorest people on earth. An eye opening moment for me and likely illegal.)
So what do they do? Reduce literature to bare minimum, staff cuts in all bethels, pile up global assets by selling off as much property as possible. They try to get all JW's to voluntarily promise a monthly financial amount. There is no means to police it and their recent financial begging is a clear indicator that JW's aren't paying. After 50 years of hammering careers, education, keeping your life simple....the spare cash isn't in the members pockets.
This is the point we are at. They have a pile of cash now. They have cut back where they can now. They have sold what they could sell. They will have a good idea how long that pile of cash will last. Printing literature for 8 million followers every month, for free...is not cheap.The problem is they have to keep making literature, its their prophetic reasoning for existing. They would love to turn the printers off and move everything online. But they know old school JW's will say... what about the poor? What about people with no internet? Not every JW has money for ipads/pc's/internet! Not even the obvious PR rebrand of the Watchtower Society to JW.ORG could convinve the average JW to drop printed literature. So they reduce print ss much as they can and to reduce literature handed out to householders by setting up witness carts.
But.....they are still forced to keep printing and distributing globally in hundreds of languages...for free.
Hence I think they have little time left. They either start eating through the pile they have and see how long it lasts... 20 years max? Or they take that pile of cash and invest it. This I truly belive they will do and likely are doing, it's the only way to be sure they have a chance of being around in 50 years. Those GB members living in bethel need more than 10-20 years security. It's where they live! It's all the have! This means that cash, if being invested, is not going into literature or 'spiritual food'. They figured a big spend on a studio where cheap to produce monthoy videos could make up some of the reduced printing, but they are under no illusion that it can replace the written text. Not to mention the huge cost to the brand of showing the GB on film regularly. Every video clip reveals their awkward humanity and questionable authority.
A big pile is also now funneled to the legal department for child abuse lawyers and settlements i.e. brand protection. The figures being consumed in these cases are not insignificant.
Between the internet/knowledge revolution and these finances, I truly believe time is short for WT, it's run by uneducated men with power and money they didn't earn but inherited through religious obedience. It's inevitably doomed.
