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No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

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Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#11

Post by DannyPage »

You can quite often get a $300 yearly sub to O'Reilly, they run a discount ~4 times a year.

That said, like a lot of other content subscriptions, it can be quite anxiety inducing to make it seem like you're getting your money's worth. I've gotten the sub via my work, and I think the labs and videos are quite good, plus the occasional opportunities to do live-chats with the authors. But you have to sift through a lot of content and dedicate a lot of hours to use them. For most folks, I think buying a few technical books a year as needed would be a much better use of time and money.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#12

Post by helsinkiandrew »

aaaaaaron wrote: post #9
crazysim wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those curious about the ACM membership: https://www.acm.org/membership/membership-options

Is this ACM membership worth it?

If your paying $500 for an O’Reilly subscription, then the $99 membership plus $75 add-on for O'Reilly would seem to make it so even if you don't use any of the other facilities:

> unlimited access to ACM's collection of thousands of online books, video courses, interactive sandboxes, practice labs, and AI-enabled tools from O'Reilly and Skillsoft Percipio

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#13

Post by cauliflower99 »

Anytime I'm asked for feedback via the O'Reilly website (I manage the business account for my company), the first thing I always say is that the app is unusable. I've tried it on my Amazon Fire Tablet, Ipad, different phones - it doesn't work.

The user metrics in O'reilly (and probably most learning apps) has floored in the last 12 months. I see they've launched a new AI platform now. They're definitely going in a direction - time will tell if it's the right one.

Personally, I'd love a website that can provide all the ebooks oreilly provides. But it needs to work on a tablet.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#15

Post by whenc »

cauliflower99 wrote: post #13

Anytime I'm asked for feedback via the O'Reilly website (I manage the business account for my company), the first thing I always say is that the app is unusable. I've tried it on my Amazon Fire Tablet, Ipad, different phones - it doesn't work. The user metrics in O'reilly (and probably most learning apps) has floored in the last 12 months. I see they've launched a new AI platform now. They're definitely going in a di…

It went un-noticed here, I think, but The Pragmatic Bookshelf recently fired most of its staff and are taking on no new books. In the email they sent to authors, they quoted a 40% YoY fall in non-fiction sales, industry-wide.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#16

Post by vittore »

cauliflower99 wrote: post #13

Anytime I'm asked for feedback via the O'Reilly website (I manage the business account for my company), the first thing I always say is that the app is unusable. I've tried it on my Amazon Fire Tablet, Ipad, different phones - it doesn't work. The user metrics in O'reilly (and probably most learning apps) has floored in the last 12 months. I see they've launched a new AI platform now. They're definitely going in a di…

I don't use an app, I use website via SFPL proxy, and it works just fine on iPad Pro (12"), but bookmarks do not work, so you need to remember where you stopped to continue after re-login.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#17

Post by otterley »

vittore wrote: post #14

If you are in Bay area, San Francisco Public Library (sfpl.org) gives you access to O'Reilly for free, if you have library card, while it does not improve on usability issues, at 0 cost it is phenomenal resource.

Seattle Public Libraries (spl.org) also provides no-cost access to the O'Reilly Complete collection as a membership benefit.

Support your local public library!

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#18

Post by vittore »

whenc wrote: post #15
cauliflower99 wrote: post #13

Anytime I'm asked for feedback via the O'Reilly website (I manage the business account for my company), the first thing I always say is that the app is unusable. I've tried it on my Amazon Fire Tablet, Ipad, different phones - it doesn't work. The user metrics in O'reilly (and probably most learning apps) has floored in the last 12 months. I see they've launched a new AI platform now. They're definitely going in a di…

It went un-noticed here, I think, but The Pragmatic Bookshelf recently fired most of its staff and are taking on no new books. In the email they sent to authors, they quoted a 40% YoY fall in non-fiction sales, industry-wide.

Anecdotal evidence, all books I bought this year were used.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#19

Post by thih9 »

> will most likely not make me renew my subscription for the new year. Given the price, it will be probably

Will the author find the time and energy to actually cancel the subscription? The fact that he wrote the blog post and still haven’t cancelled makes me wonder.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#20

Post by teddyh »

gruntledfangler wrote: post #10

At one time I worked at a research institute. It had a huge library that was only partially filled. One of the directors wanted to buy every developer their own Safari subscription. The cost was quoted at around $4K/mo IIRC. I pointed out that it would be far more cost–effective to simple let us request hard copies of whatever books we wanted, and then they would just stay in the library. No one worked remotely at th…

It’s capex vs. opex. A large enough company has a fixed budget for both, and for your situation, I assume that the opex budget had the funds, while the capex did not.
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