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No one buys books

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Re: No one buys books

#641

Post by wizzwizz4 »

nottorp wrote: post #432
Tor3 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes and no.. I do use the backlight on my Kindle if it's dark, but this changes how it looks. I have a Paperwhite Kindle. With the backlight on it's more like reading on LCD, though not as bad. The Kindle looks much nicer if I can use a bedside lamp instead of the backlight, just as I would with a paper book.

You still can't turn off the light on a Kindle completely can you? Always felt like a waste of battery on a beach...

If you put it in / out of sleep mode juuuust right, you can trigger a bug (race condition?) where it doesn't turn the backlight on.

Re: No one buys books

#642

Post by appplication »

gavin_gee wrote: post #638
grepLeigh wrote: post #332

From the article: >>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?" I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local…

The licensing costs for Ebooks are unsustainable for library's. The publishers don't want any sharing and so the cost per ebook vs physical is totally out of sync with Ebooks considerably higher. One could argue that publishers are the ones who are strangling the viability of libraries to exist.

This feels like something that could/should be legislated. Libraries should not be subject to the same restrictions on content sharing that consumers are.

Or maybe one better: eliminate restrictions on content sharing.

Re: No one buys books

#643

Post by wenc »

nottorp wrote: post #429
wenc wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read paper books because I can flip back and forth without friction, and I can underline and scribble. I don't know why eReader interfaces make these two functions -- critical for deep reading -- so difficult. Kindle is optimized for linear reading only. So beach reading and long romances. But if you do the kind of reading that Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book" proposes (skimming, inspectional reading, writing…

Looks like you don't read books for entertainment? I believe the original article wasn't about technical/self improvement etc books.

I do read for entertainment, but I’m talking about reading to learn (very common use case) rather than reading fiction.

I don’t take notes when I’m reading fiction like “A Man Called Ove”. But I do take notes and flip back and forth when I’m reading say Girard.

Re: No one buys books

#644

Post by winternett »

grepLeigh wrote: post #332

From the article: >>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?" I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local…

In my city certain people are often using them and leaving... uh... errant trace elements of themselves on said resources, especially the public-use computers... :/

I'm not really a germaphobe, but in the age of the pandemic, I think public resources like libraries are under serious threat, just like busses and public transit. It would be nice if there was some sort of reassurance that cleaning and disinfecting was taking place between each use.

Re: No one buys books

#645

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

boringg wrote: post #579
nox101 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what logic leads to this conclusion? I tend to lean to the rising tide lifts all boats. who benefits from illiteracy?

The response to your comment thread here is some pretty high flying conspiracies. The thought that those in power would try and make the country illiterate is straight up ridiculous. That would completely undermine the competitiveness of the country AND the time line to get any benefit for the "elites or whomever is behind it" would be significantly long. Now if you are talking about a country like India - sure I cou…

No one is suggesting billionaires are rational.

Re: No one buys books

#646

Post by sandspar »

Spivak wrote: post #633
sandspar wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about midwits or whatever. Millions of very intelligent people still get most of their knowledge from books. Books remain the highest octane fuel.

It's always fun to see "parent's point immediately proven in the replies" happen in the wild.

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Re: No one buys books

#647

Post by _aavaa_ »

initplus wrote: post #371
grepLeigh wrote: post #332

From the article: >>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?" I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local…

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.

The reason Spotify and Netflix don't make you wait is because they give the copyright owners money for views. A library does not, nor do I think they should.

The current business model of selling libraries ebooks that can only be viewed a max number of times before needing to be repurchased, or only for a limited amount of time, is a money grab pure and simple.

Re: No one buys books

#648

Post by LVB »

linuxftw wrote: post #631
wesselbindt wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioning helping the homeless in this convo has the same kind of vibe to me as conservatives only mentioning mental health when talking about gun control. They only ever mention mental health as a distraction from issues they do actually care about (like gun control), and have no interest in actually solving mental health issues. It's a typical way of bad faith arguing. That's just vibes though; there's a good…

I volunteer at my local food bank to help feed to homeless. I understand just how dire the need is. Libraries are a luxury we cannot afford right now, and frankly nobody uses them. Any 'feel good' purpose like 'literacy' is already met by public schools. There's already federal subsidies for internet and telephone for the needy, and the people that live too far away to get internet definitely don't have the money or…

>and frankly nobody uses them

Random stat from my Oregon county (pop. 600k) library collective of 16 local libraries: 2023 saw 10.8M items checked out, up 4% from 2022

Re: No one buys books

#649

Post by bigstrat2003 »

criddell wrote: post #116
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same way, and also: I want to not have to pay a subscription fee forever. Once I have what I want, then that's it! I'm don't need to spend another dime. But if I use Spotify or whatever, I have to keep paying forever. It is a much worse deal.

Do you think of cable/satellite/streaming tv in the same way as Spotify?

I pay for streaming 90% because my wife wants to, and 10% because it's the only way I can legally watch things in some cases. So I would say yes, in that I would rather ditch those too, but no in that they have uses I can't replace at this time.

Re: No one buys books

#650

Post by bzhang255 »

tomgp wrote: post #475

OK, I haven't read the whole thing yet but this bit raised an eyebrow... >These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: _publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies)._ Why do we vie…

I read that line as sardonic. The author is pointing out how the economics of publishing are contrary to what we would expect, or perhaps would like.
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