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The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

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Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#21

Post by EliRivers »

shantly wrote: post #15
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only matters if your definition of efficient is along the axis of carring more books or minimizing space uptake. If your efficiency is based on the pleasure of holding pages, the visual aesthetic of multiple books, the maximum amount of time to go without a charge, collecting signed editions, etc. then eBooks are completely garbage.

They’re also superior in most ways as interfaces to works with more features than “main body text”, and to which you intend to refer again very often. Pop fic and pop non-fic, then, for ebooks. Excellent for those. Paper or both for most everything else.

Aye. I've been reading on a long line of Sony Readers since 2005, and currently use a PRS-350 that I'm preserving as long as I can (I never liked Kindles). It's only a replacement for a stack of novels or other such books I intend to read cover to cover, probably once and once only. I've read over a thousand books on it, got a couple of dozen stacked up in there at any one time ready to go.

My paper book library has increased every year; novels I want to own on paper (sometimes more than one copy), books received as gifts, technical books, art books, picture books, language books, reference books, mathematical text books, graphic novels (and indeed, some things that clearly are "comics"), a significant number of books that simply aren't available in electronic form (and I probably wouldn't want in electronic form anyway - if I'm buying a book from the 1800s I want the physical artifact!), more and more.

At the moment, the only benefit I see to the Sony Reader is that it's very lightweight and compact for a stack of 12 novels. That is a very serious benefit and it's a real lifesaver for travelling, but inside the house I'm paper all the way. The only problem I have with them is that I'm genuinely running out of space to put them. Every bookshelf is two (or even three deep) with books, and I've lost one desk entirely to books piled three to four feet deep. There is a real chance that I might end up finally giving up on renting purely to buy a house in which I can turn a couple of rooms into decent book storage.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#22

Post by teh_klev »

RickJWagner wrote: post #12

I'm a huge packrat and have quite a few old books (especially tech titles. I'm never ready to admit I won't be coding Visual Basic again one day....) But I can see the future. I've been accumulating titles on my Kindle, and I really like using it. I think paper book sales are doomed for long-term decline.

> I think paper book sales are doomed for long-term decline.

I'm not sure that's true. I own a Kindle but I find it's less expensive to purchase new paper books just about every time. Sure there's the occasional time when a book is on offer in the Kindle store, but it's pretty rare. I haven't re-charged my Kindle for more than a couple of years.

Also there's a bunch of authors I've followed and read over the last 40 years whose books I always buy in hardback whenever they publish something new.

When it comes to technical books paper wins every time, simply because it's far easier to jump about the pages. Also diagrams, graphs, code samples, that kinda thing are pretty awful in current e-book implementations.

And then for many of us there's nothing quite like the feel of a paper book and, if you have space, building a physical library of stuff read, and stuff to be read and being able to peruse it when looking for the next thing to read. Though this does make for a lot of boxes each time you move house.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#23

Post by lmm »

EliRivers wrote: post #18
RickJWagner wrote: post #12

I'm a huge packrat and have quite a few old books (especially tech titles. I'm never ready to admit I won't be coding Visual Basic again one day....) But I can see the future. I've been accumulating titles on my Kindle, and I really like using it. I think paper book sales are doomed for long-term decline.

I think paper book sales are doomed for long-term decline. On what grounds, may I ask? There currently doesn't seem to be a long-term declining trend in paper book sales, so are you expecting a significant change in technology or society that will cause a long-term decline? Or (possibly) did you conclude this (quite reasonably) when there was such a trend and haven't checked recently?

I think we'll see the decline happen once there's a generation that grew up with ebooks as an option. All the reasons people give for preferring paper books seem to amount to habit and nostalgia; people who've grown up taking Kindles on holiday will see no reason not to use them all the time.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#24

Post by shantly »

EliRivers wrote: post #21
shantly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re also superior in most ways as interfaces to works with more features than “main body text”, and to which you intend to refer again very often. Pop fic and pop non-fic, then, for ebooks. Excellent for those. Paper or both for most everything else.

Aye. I've been reading on a long line of Sony Readers since 2005, and currently use a PRS-350 that I'm preserving as long as I can (I never liked Kindles). It's only a replacement for a stack of novels or other such books I intend to read cover to cover, probably once and once only. I've read over a thousand books on it, got a couple of dozen stacked up in there at any one time ready to go. My paper book library has…

Yeah, I've been forcing myself to make Hard Choices about my largish collection of books, and novels from the last 80-100 years are the easiest ones to ditch in favor of ebooks. Even short story collections, it's kinda nice to have those in dead-tree format for convenience, but ordinary (not, like, Infinite Jest), somewhat recent novels? Hard to justify keeping them around.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#25

Post by PNT510 »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #9
londons_explore wrote: post #2

It might be a shame for an old tradition to go away, but in a capitalist world, the usual reason something gets replaced is there is a more efficient way to do it. In this case, it's ebooks and learning over the internet. The need for the paper book is diminished, and it is a waste of our human labour for thousands of people to be working book stalls for entire lifetimes when there is a more efficient way to dissemin…

Even if people prefer paper books, that used book shop in the article is still doomed. Their competition is not the internet. It's a better bookstore with lower prices in an air conditioned shopping mall.

Except those "better bookstores" are also struggling. The internet might not be killing physical book sales, but online retailers are killing physical book retailers.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#26

Post by trianglem »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #9
londons_explore wrote: post #2

It might be a shame for an old tradition to go away, but in a capitalist world, the usual reason something gets replaced is there is a more efficient way to do it. In this case, it's ebooks and learning over the internet. The need for the paper book is diminished, and it is a waste of our human labour for thousands of people to be working book stalls for entire lifetimes when there is a more efficient way to dissemin…

Even if people prefer paper books, that used book shop in the article is still doomed. Their competition is not the internet. It's a better bookstore with lower prices in an air conditioned shopping mall.

Having been to a similar market in Mumbai, I can tell you that any air conditioned store with overhead is never going to be able to compete with these roadside bazaars in range or pricing. I fondly remember buying huge bagfuls of relatively recent releases for maybe $5 dollars a bag.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#27

Post by SolaceQuantum »

shantly wrote: post #15
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only matters if your definition of efficient is along the axis of carring more books or minimizing space uptake. If your efficiency is based on the pleasure of holding pages, the visual aesthetic of multiple books, the maximum amount of time to go without a charge, collecting signed editions, etc. then eBooks are completely garbage.

They’re also superior in most ways as interfaces to works with more features than “main body text”, and to which you intend to refer again very often. Pop fic and pop non-fic, then, for ebooks. Excellent for those. Paper or both for most everything else.

Yes, but again, these rely on different definitions of efficiency. I definitely don't consider multi-method interfacing to be useful to me at all in the books I read. I would much rather physically write notes if I want to commit something to reference or memory, since my brain has O(1) lookup where I wrote where something else is, but an O(n) lookup when I get to the note-bucket of my reference pools. Much easier to scan over a single page or a sticky note on the physical book surface than however long would be my library's notes as a totality.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#28

Post by blotter_paper »

lmm wrote: post #23
EliRivers wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think paper book sales are doomed for long-term decline. On what grounds, may I ask? There currently doesn't seem to be a long-term declining trend in paper book sales, so are you expecting a significant change in technology or society that will cause a long-term decline? Or (possibly) did you conclude this (quite reasonably) when there was such a trend and haven't checked recently?

I think we'll see the decline happen once there's a generation that grew up with ebooks as an option. All the reasons people give for preferring paper books seem to amount to habit and nostalgia; people who've grown up taking Kindles on holiday will see no reason not to use them all the time.

I mostly agree, despite having nostalgia for dead trees myself. One area that I think paper books are still actually superior in is their data consistency; a paper book is still mostly readable after hitting it with a sledge hammer or spilling coffee on it. I will never replace my collection of survival and repair manuals with a Kindle, even though I use a Kindle more often than dead trees in day to day life.

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#29

Post by smogcutter »

teh_klev wrote: post #22
RickJWagner wrote: post #12

I'm a huge packrat and have quite a few old books (especially tech titles. I'm never ready to admit I won't be coding Visual Basic again one day....) But I can see the future. I've been accumulating titles on my Kindle, and I really like using it. I think paper book sales are doomed for long-term decline.

> I think paper book sales are doomed for long-term decline. I'm not sure that's true. I own a Kindle but I find it's less expensive to purchase new paper books just about every time. Sure there's the occasional time when a book is on offer in the Kindle store, but it's pretty rare. I haven't re-charged my Kindle for more than a couple of years. Also there's a bunch of authors I've followed and read over the last 40…

> And then for many of us there's nothing quite like the feel of a paper book and, if you have space, building a physical library of stuff read, and stuff to be read and being able to peruse it when looking for the next thing to read.

A lot of people dismiss this, but I think it’s absolutely true. A hugely formative part of my childhood was just browsing the bookshelves at home and pulling down whatever looked interesting. If our books were on kindle, that experience doesn’t happen.

Also, in the immortal words of John Waters: “If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”

Re: The Uncertain Future of the World’s Largest Secondhand Book Market

#30

Post by workthrowaway »

mcguire wrote: post #20
Angostura wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in a capitalist world, the usual reason something gets replaced is there is a more efficient way to do it. Increasingly it seems to me that things get replaced simply because a company can make more revenue. * Subscription software - 'more efficient'? Not really - just a guaranteed revenue stream * planned obsolescence in products - 'more efficient'? No. * "Books" that you don't really own, that you can't easil…

A nit: subscription software solves the perennial "necessary maintenance" problem. Nobody will pay to fix problems, only for new features.

nit: these updates often break working software if you ask me. the productivity loss here is not negligible.
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