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Friction creates middle-class jobs, and cutting it out means automating or completely bypassing those jobs. Books provide a simple example of how today’s technology nukes friction-generating jobs. Physical books generate a lot of friction between publisher and reader—think of the portion of a book’s price that goes to employees at printers, truck companies, warehouses and book retailers. An e-book erases much of that. A book zips from Amazon’s data center to your iPad. The technology brings benefits to the publisher as costs fall, and it makes books cheaper and easier for consumers to get. But it kills all those jobs in the middle.