I just am old school because I will ALWAYS prefer printed material over digital. I dread the day that physical goods finally vanish.
No one buys books
551–560 of 752 posts
Re: No one buys books
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
what logic leads to this conclusion? I tend to lean to the rising tide lifts all boats. who benefits from illiteracy?
Elites are always worried about the labor crisis - “nobody wants to work”. Usually this is about blue collar work, and their desire to underpay and overwork service/laborers. Globally, this class of people definitely wants to reduce literacy to keep a stream of manual labor inflowing.
This is a strong claim that needs some data to back it up.
Re: No one buys books
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am kind of the opposite; I have found it much easier to read on Kindle simply because I can make the text as big as I want. In high school, I remembered that I really struggled to read The Once and Future King, and I never finished it. I eventually assumed I was too dumb to understand it, and that it’s just not for me. Fast forward about 13 years, and I decide to give the book a try again, this time on the Kindle,…
Yes, surely the only reason you'd dislike something at 14-18 years old and like it at 27-31 is the font size. I take it your tastes have otherwise been immutable in that time period, and that you listen to the same music, follow the same fashion trends etc. as you did back then?
I didn’t say that they were immutable, but from a comprehension level I don’t think that things have changed substantially. Is it really controversial that bigger fonts are easier for me to read?
I thought I made that pretty clear, that it was that I was having trouble parsing and understanding the small text.
ETA:
Also, lol, my tastes in music really hasn’t changed either. Looking at my YouTube music history, the last 40 songs I listened to were ones I listened to in high school. I also wear more or less the style clothes; I still have of the shirts I wore back then actually.
Re: No one buys books
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am kind of the opposite; I have found it much easier to read on Kindle simply because I can make the text as big as I want. In high school, I remembered that I really struggled to read The Once and Future King, and I never finished it. I eventually assumed I was too dumb to understand it, and that it’s just not for me. Fast forward about 13 years, and I decide to give the book a try again, this time on the Kindle,…
> I realized that the only really different variable is the font size. Didn't you say you're 13 years older than last time?
From a “ability to comprehend it” level, I don’t think that that matters all that much. 16 year old me could read just fine.
Re: No one buys books
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
> > [Rich & powerful assholes often maintain their status by unethical means.] > This is conspiracy level thinking. The prevalence of assholes is a documented thing (latest numbers I've heard was over 6% of clinical narcissists, reportedly a very conservative lower bound), and who would ever be surprised that high-status people like being high-status? I don't know about libraries specifically , but the idea that rich…
The irony is that one of the largest contributions to the public library system was one of the richest guys ever. Carnegie funded over 2500.
You do realise you're not contradicting anything I've just said, right?
Quoting myself, "I am of course not denying the existence of nice rich people".
Re: No one buys books
#556I recently started buying paper books. Yes, it's not particularly ecological, but I found that I'm able to focus at the text much better this way. My Kindle (despite plenty of obvious advantages) just doesn't really work for me. It took me years to realize this, but I always start to tinker with the brightness settings, switch pages back and forth, go into the book library and back, play with highlighting words, etc.…
I am kind of the opposite; I have found it much easier to read on Kindle simply because I can make the text as big as I want. In high school, I remembered that I really struggled to read The Once and Future King, and I never finished it. I eventually assumed I was too dumb to understand it, and that it’s just not for me. Fast forward about 13 years, and I decide to give the book a try again, this time on the Kindle,…
Note that only having a certain chunk of text on the screen at one time may be a variable as well as the age/life-place difference as others have so politely hinted at.
Re: No one buys books
#557Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not disruption to make me wait 5 weeks to read a digital file through my local library's Libby service. It's an outdated business model using artificial scarcity that isn't effective at getting books onto readers devices. Spotify doesn't make me take out a hold on the artist I want to listen to. Netflix doesn't make me queue to watch the latest release.
I don't think it's fair to compare Netflix and Spotify to libraries; you pay for the first two. I agree that it's artificial scarcity and it's hard to feel bad for the publishing companies
Depends completely where you are. My library would cost €60/year.
Re: No one buys books
#558One advantage of published books is that they have been through an editorial process, and so are guaranteed to be good (on some dimensions).
Once publishing dies, who will set the quality bar? University presses? Stripe press?
Re: No one buys books
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony is that one of the largest contributions to the public library system was one of the richest guys ever. Carnegie funded over 2500.
You do realise you're not contradicting anything I've just said, right? Quoting myself, "I am of course not denying the existence of nice rich people" .
But then you go on to say,
>Though I'm afraid they tend to be selected out of ludicrous wealth.
The irony is that one of the most ludicrously wealthy people in history was also probably the single largest contributor to public libraries. Whether or not he was simply an outlier, I think that’s an important thing to point out.
Further, some data suggests that as much as 5% of the general population are narcissists. So collectively, your point seems to be that rich people are pretty much like the rest of us, just with more money.
Re: No one buys books
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ebooks are touching or have crossed 50% of sales in certain combinations of markets and genres. Overall they make up 30-50% of all book sales. So no, print books aren't still the vast majority.
I remember reading on Charles Stross' blog that the paperback is kind of dead in the US. At least for his niche. I think his last book only went out in hard cover.
> I think his last book only went out in hard cover.
And ebook instead of paperback, of course.