51–60 of 117 posts
I do wonder if Brexit and customs to be paid for all of the EU has anything to do with this decision. Book Depsitory is based in the UK. I have inadvertently ordered from them, to the Netherlands, as they had a “Bookdepository NL” store, which made it seem like they are an EU entity. However, when the book arrived, I was hit by unexpected customs charges that were half the price of the book. Looking at recent reviews…
This does suck for obvious reasons, but I also think we need to get a good, thin, eInk tablet like Remarkable or Boox Note down to the sub 100 usd/gbp price. Kindles are ok but they’re too small for textbooks and you’re also locked into Amazon. Plus they’re read only (apart from the latest one), and the new generation of tablets around atm can serve as paper like notebooks as well as eReaders. I like reading paper bo…
Or more prosaic "feature": ban the book in your region.
This does suck for obvious reasons, but I also think we need to get a good, thin, eInk tablet like Remarkable or Boox Note down to the sub 100 usd/gbp price. Kindles are ok but they’re too small for textbooks and you’re also locked into Amazon. Plus they’re read only (apart from the latest one), and the new generation of tablets around atm can serve as paper like notebooks as well as eReaders. I like reading paper bo…
Until they decide to retroactively delete your book, or change the text, because someone didnt like it. Or more prosaic "feature": ban the book in your region.
There are no words for how much this sucks. If you are outside the US/EU, reasonably priced books in english aren't easy to find. CompSci literature in English? Forget it, buddy. Book Depository had decent prices with free international shipping to most of the world. Sure, I have to wait a month and sometimes they have to reship because it got damaged in transport, but if I need a book immediately Library Genesis is…
I tried buying some really obscure books on Amazon - and the interface is pure garbage. When I looked for random items, those often looked like cheap knock-offs?
Generally once per year I try to look at various "best books of 2022" lists [did hacker news have one?] and then try to get the obscure books. Often it feels easier (but not cheaper) to get them through those third party sellers than search on Amazon that offers 10 options of used books, semi-used books, PDFs - I genuinely dont know how to exclude the things that I dont want.
This reminds me how EBAY tried to enter the Polish market and their launch was so damn bad and the website so damn poor, that after 2 years they licked their wounds and simply exited the market.
I wish more people know Allegro, which has its own share of problems, but is so much better (I think most problems came when venture capital came, bought it and now tries to squeeze money out of it).
In Poland you buy something on Allegro and usually in 1-2 days you get it to a parcel locker machine. Which is like a machine that stores the packages for you in a safe way. I never understood why those dont exist in USA. As I understand the delivery drivers throw the packages on your garden, where they can be stolen, damaged by rain or so on.
I think Germany also has parcel lockers + the concept was introduced to UK due to all the Polish diaspora ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_locker ), but when it comes to number of machines per capita Poland probably wins.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never ever had to pay VAT at the customs for Book Depository orders in Finland. My most recent order came in March and I had a pre-order for June.
Are books VAT free in Finland? They are in the UK and Ireland so I have never had customs either (in Ireland). Perhaps they are not VAT free in NL.
Ebooks used to be in the general VAT category of 24% but I think they've fixed that now.
Buy it. Invest nothing major into it. Wait for the economy to take a downturn and shut it down because it isn't profitable.