"Netflix for Books" sounds like the perfect description of a library.
Except for the "free to everyone for the public good" part.
Oyster is launching an e-book store
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store
#52Wonder how extensive is their tech book collection. Far as I can tell they don't have Real World Haskell.
Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store
#53"The Netflix for books" - you mean the public library? I'm astounded how few young people seem to have any clue what their libraries offer. FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, you never have to set foot in the building.
I'm a big fan of my local library, unfortunately their ebook system is very annoying. They've partnered with some service that only allows you to access books through an iOS app (so I can't read on e-ink) and it seems that each book is just a pdf delivered to the app, so you can't change font size or the way the words flow. On top of that, if they even have the book you want you often have to wait several weeks befor…
Yup. My local library only has so many copies of ebooks, and they're almost always checked out. One book I was looking for had a four month wait list. For an ebook!
Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave.
Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store
#54There's Kindle Unlimited and FreeTime Unlimited for kids' books by Amazon, but neither Kindle Unlimited, nor Oyster had the books I needed.
Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store
#55Speaking as someone who is not familiar with Oyster… The journalist (Davey Alba) has left out some critical context to drive home the significance of Oyster’s foray into "ebook retail". After doing some research, here’s the part that the Wired article doesn’t make explicit: Yes, the Oyster subscription service is has titles from "all 5 big publishers" and yes, it is "unlimited" but the catch is that the content is mo…
My hope is that it will somehow allow me to stop dealing with the walled garden aspect of ebooks.
Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can request a title and more and more libraries are leaning on patron driven acquisition (PDA) for collection development. The library I am employed at buys almost everything that comes in via recommendation. That said, limited availability is a much more complicated problem than budgeting or selection. With print books there's a very well established workflow and discount model. Wholesalers who sell to libraries…
Why would publishers offer libraries discounts? If anything one would assume they either wouldn't sell you their new books at all or would at a minimum charge you through the nose. After all your are a competitor. I get it for older books, that makes sense, since at that point most of the books would stop selling and be worth more as a means to get readers to buy the next in the series.
>Why would publishers offer libraries discounts?
That's the point I'm trying to make. Physical materials, the materials libraries have built their workflows and budgets around, operate using different rules. Wholesalers will provide discounts because libraries buy lots of stuff and so better discounts mean moving more materials and, more importantly, stopping customers from going to another wholesaler. E-books have no wholesaler. They are controlled by the publisher so there is no going to a competitor for better pricing. Thus higher prices (in the realm of 3x the retail hardcover).
That said, publishers have been lowering prices and increasing access slowly. Along with being competitors, libraries are customers, and big ones. Public libraries buy more that 1 billion in materials a year. That's a lot to walk away from because they are "competitors".
My point was just to communicate that though libraries offer value, It's difficult to compete with something like Oyster at the moment.
Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store
#57I'm seeing lots of threads here making the facile "you mean the public library?" comparison, but have any of you ever actually tried using the "digital lending" features at your local library? It's nothing at all like a Netflix for books! Limited selections that make Netflix's streaming library look vast, tight restrictions on the number of "digital copies" that can be lent out at once, leading to months-long waitlis…
To be fair, it's not like Netflix's digital library is exactly "Netflix for movies" either. That's also true with Oyster and their limited front list titles. For broad access, physical is still where it's at.
Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a big fan of my local library, unfortunately their ebook system is very annoying. They've partnered with some service that only allows you to access books through an iOS app (so I can't read on e-ink) and it seems that each book is just a pdf delivered to the app, so you can't change font size or the way the words flow. On top of that, if they even have the book you want you often have to wait several weeks befor…
Yup. My local library only has so many copies of ebooks, and they're almost always checked out. One book I was looking for had a four month wait list. For an ebook! Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave.
>Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave.
As someone who deals with e-books for libraries, I feel that frustration, but I also understand where publishers are coming from. They are doing everything they can to hold onto a business model they have been successful with. They also have authors to deal with, who have been successful with the same model and control the production of the product, to some extent.
That said, I suspect many libraries would be willing to license e-books like they license journal content: on an all access subscription model.