I can understand how I might not find agreement with others, and I totally respect that.
But I promise you, if I had suggested back in the 1970s or around 1985 when we who were in "the Society," as we called it back then, would see a day when our very own Bible society would stop producing printed materials or to merely suggest that it might happen would have been a quick path to disfellowshipping.
Revelation 9:10 was viewed as a prophecy that was interpreted how we would leave our literature behind with "stinging" messages. And the trumpet blasts and woes of Revelation were directly tied to the printing of specific books and publications that were printed. The blue "Truth" book, being described in the Guiness World Book of records as one of the most highly printed and allegedly distributed books in history was considered a proof that Jehovah God was behind the work. We even used to say that more people had a "Truth" book than owned a copy of Gone With the Wind! Better the Bible be false than we ever stop producing God's life saving message!
I was there when the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society held its 100th anniversary (and the speaker there announced, "We will never hold another 100 years anniversary" to a crowd that laughed and cheered in applause because we knew back then that we were so close to the end back in the 1980s.) It was all about printing actual books back then becuase, well, that's what Bible societies do. They are printing houses.
What is this I hear? No calendar? Have people use e-books and don't order bound volumes? When I was "in the Truth," not ordering and owning bound volumes was a sign that you were not a diligent student of God's Word, that you were spiritually weak and sickly. We even had reminders that taught us the importance of ordering our bound volumes. Even when the first CD ROM WT library came out and we had the NWT (on floppy disks that we had to load onto out hard drives), we were told not to use the computer over the printed publications or substitute looking up Scriptures with a PC for direct handling of a printed Bible.
We used to hold assemblies in a complex that would also hold the Worldwide Church of God's assemblies simultaneously. I was a JW when Armstrong died. Jesus was supposed to return before his death and their concept of an earthly paradise "World Tomorrow" was supposed to come before their leader passed away. I was there watching them assemble even after his death, as they stayed strong at first--and extremely cash rich--and then suddenly it was gone. Millions upon millions, instantly, dried up. And the WCG flock scattered and dwindled.
The writing is always on the wall before the empire falls, always. No more printing is a symptom that something obviously is very, very wrong. A Bible and tract society prints literature, like the United Bible Societies do. Just grinding out electronic information in a world that still uses printed books, especially when it comes to religion, is a death knoll. Bible societies older than the Watchtower still exist and print more than ever today.
Regardless of how much money they got on hand, it obviously isn't enough. Their Bible society is now a ghost. A publishing house that doesn't print books isn't a publishing house.
It looked just like this for the WCG right after Armstrong died. Cash still was coming in, their Ambassador College was still cranking away. Then when their brains caught up with the reality that their promised paradise earth, their "World Tomorrow" really had not come before Armstrong died, it was over like a lightning bolt's flash.
Yep, the Euphrates has run dry. But it turns out that Babylon is not Christendom. The river no longer providing is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. The presses are halting, the books are practically nonexistent. That society was their lifeline. Once rivers dry up, thirst and famine set in.
Doubt what I say, but from where I stood over three decades ago, this is a dried skeleton beyond raising. Turn off the lights, the party is over!