WT Literature, how important is it?
Now they have the ability to just upload the current issues on their web site and the individuals could just download then in pdf format and print them out and then underline the answers to all questions asked in red pencil. No need to print millions. Especially for the Western nations and the technology they have embraced. If it was about the needy distribution of pertinent information, free downloadable information would work fine.
But it's obviously NOT about the needy distribution of pertinent information. It's about profits made by a book publishing corporation who copyrights their literature, the same literature they say is written under divine direction, under divine mandate, for distribution to all people on earth.
In my experience the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation is working very hard to keep that literature written under divine direction from being freely distributed to all the people on earth. They seem to be working much harder to keep the literature FROM being distributed than they are in seeing to it the information is distributed.
Clearly, the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation's motivation for the distribution of information printed on paper in the form of literature is financial reward. That's the ONLY reason they would copyright the work and refuse to freely distribute it by Internet download.
They seem to have failed to realize that the reason for the existence of the publishing company is to make the progressively revealed (to them) word of God known to the world by means of the literature. This is their purpose. To be a Witness means to distribute the publications printed by the book publishing corporation. Distributing the progressively revealed word of God by means of the printed publications is so important, God supposedly instructed that those doing this work be identified as "Publishers", and keep tract of placements of that literature on another piece of printed literature, the "House To House Report" form.
The exclusive access to the printed literature is paramount to the purpose of the group and critical to the doctrine of reward for book distribution by immortality. Without the printed literature, there is no work. If there is no distribution work, there is no identifying members as "publishers". If there are no publications, there can be no measure of faithfulness to the God of the progressively revealed information by means of printed literature. Unpaid distribution of religious literature is the measurable religious behavior of the group and all merit in the group is based on this one thing. Recognition of the publishing corporation having exclusive access to the channel through which God is channeling His progressively revealed information is a prerequisite for "approved for association" status within the group. All to do with printing.
None of this makes any sense if this group really had access to the progressively revealed word of God. It only makes sense if this is a book publishing group identifying themselves as a religion, relying on their one and only product, the hard printed literature. Without the printed literature to manually deliver, there is no purpose, and ultimately, no group. The information contained in the literature is secondary and dispensable. The hard printed product is primary and indispensable.
Or what am I missing? GaryB