Speaking of Spotify, I think I could actually save money by buying the albums I mostly listen to and transferring them over to my phone. But knowing I have access, and that I'm actually paying for music makes me happier than not doing so.
I think I'd feel the same way about books. I wouldn't have to worry about finding books in the right format, for the right price, without DRM. Instead I'd be paying for access, and not have to worry that I wasn't doing my part for the publishing industry.
I'd really like a Lovefilm for (physical) books. The library should achieve that, but in practice they don't have a lot of the books I want[*]; I'm imagining something very comprehensive, like Lovefilm seems to be.
[*] although county-wide inter-library loans have improved it from about 2% of the books I want to about 50%.
Aside from the delivery aspect, surely this is just a library.
I can see the stock being badly damaged after a while though. Books do take a heck of a pounding, especially paperbacks. Imagine paying to borrow a dog eared copy of the most recent bestseller that's been through the post 30 times in a month.
I need to get over my urge to own books. I think when I read something I love, that emotion gets tangled into the book (I imagine this is how hoarders get started). However, I rarely re-read books, so really, a Spotify book deal would probably suit my needs a lot better.
When it comes to non-fiction or reference books, that would be INCREDIBLY useful. However I like keeping those sorts of books when I need to look something up. I have a good memory for the location of information, and a less good memory for the information itself.
I'd be more likely to do it for a tenner a month, but might go up to 15 depending on the catalogue. I know Spotify doesn't pay the artists terribly well, but I wonder how the royalties from a book-Spotify would compare to library payments? I'd still buy books as well, but only ones I thought I might like to keep.
I see I'm the only person to tick more than £20 quid. I don't think it will ever happen (not least because it would destroy the economics of publishing) but universal access to everything published is easily worth that.
I can see big problems with getting revenue to publishers for such a service -- like how do you split revenue fairly. For example, with my kindle, I look in the dictionary moderately regularly because there's a simple cursor based word look up so if I'm not quite sure of a meaning I now look it up (e.g. destrier previously was filed as "some kind of horse" and I now know "big chunky war horse"). So I "read" the dictionary every week. Other books I might dip into to refresh my memory if I'm reading something else in the series. But by "page time" I am actually spending most of my time with various fiction books. If not carefully handled the revenue stream could be pretty unfair.
If it were priced below my current level of ebook consumption then I would do it -- but why would publishers?
Actually, I know why publishers would. Humans have an irrational love for a flat-fee model. People will provably pay more for "unlimited" broadband than for broadband charged per hour or per Gb of use. So I guess publishers could use it as a lever to get more money out of people -- at which point I would not use it since I read research literature and am, hence, unusually aware of the weaknesses in human ability to get the best deal for a service.
I’ve been thinking about this myself recently. I really like the idea. I subscribe to Napster and it has really enhanced the depth and breadth of my musical appreciation.
I ticked £20 per month. That’s how much cable costs. It’s about two new paperbacks in paper or half an academic text.
I don’t often re-read books so the ownership is symbollic for me. I’m a big fan of the John Schumman lyric from Where Ya Gonna Run to Now “the books on your shelves are a measure of all that you’ve learned”. How would I demonstrate my status as a man of learning if visitors to my home are not confronted with a wall of books?
The catalogue would be very important in making the decision. What I’m missing from the library is a back catalogue of science fiction and lots of specialist non-fiction.
The author payment is tricky and the way it works for short songs is probably not going to be the way it works for long books. Not a problem that I need to solve tho’. I’d let the authors, rights owners and E-library suppliers sort it out for themselves on whatever terms make sense to them.
With no exceptions I can think of, books fall into two categories for me:
Books I would like to read once and then not read again. (There are millions of these.)
Books I would like to have on my bookshelf forever and ever amen. (There are about 180 of these. They aren't always the same 180, as I get older.)
I don't read near as many of the first kind of books as I would like, a bit because I don't want to pay for them, but mostly because I don't want to keep accumulating books I have no intention of reading again and then have to figure out how to get rid of them (this keeps happening anyway, but, you know, I'd like to have it happen less). The kind of service you suggest would be ideal.
Hell yes, and I would pay over £20 if it meant full access to the books I need when I need them. I use Edinburgh library, and the university libraries here and in Glasgow, and I use jstor a lot. The books I need often have long waits on them, or need to be ordered through ILL, or are reference only. I use Google books to read bits and pieces, but so very often the bits you want are unavailable in them.
And, throw in unlimited fiction reading, and I'm happy. I'd still buy a ton of books, though. I'm still buying paper books as well as reading on a kindle.
Since I got my Kindle I've read more, although I suspect it's more rubbish. With Kindle offers it's easier to download something I might not buy normally, but equally I've found some decent authors that way.
I no-longer want a library. That might not sound weird (who wants a library?!), but as a kid & teen, I always wanted a library!
Key reason I'd pay for a service is new books. Libraries are rubbish for new books in general. That said, a fiver every week or few days for a new download is not a problem - some of my colleagues spend that on Starbucks.
Assuming they had every single book in stock that I could ever want to read...
Nope, still probably not. I'm not reading enough fiction/light nonfiction at the moment to make a monthly fee worthwhile, and the academic stuff is much better in paper form since I only have limited screen space but can have nigh-unlimited physical books spread all over my apartment. And that's not getting into the physical comfort of sprawling with a book versus trying to find a comfortable reading position with my netbook.
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I think I'd feel the same way about books. I wouldn't have to worry about finding books in the right format, for the right price, without DRM. Instead I'd be paying for access, and not have to worry that I wasn't doing my part for the publishing industry.
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[*] although county-wide inter-library loans have improved it from about 2% of the books I want to about 50%.
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I can see the stock being badly damaged after a while though. Books do take a heck of a pounding, especially paperbacks. Imagine paying to borrow a dog eared copy of the most recent bestseller that's been through the post 30 times in a month.
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When it comes to non-fiction or reference books, that would be INCREDIBLY useful. However I like keeping those sorts of books when I need to look something up. I have a good memory for the location of information, and a less good memory for the information itself.
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If it were priced below my current level of ebook consumption then I would do it -- but why would publishers?
Actually, I know why publishers would. Humans have an irrational love for a flat-fee model. People will provably pay more for "unlimited" broadband than for broadband charged per hour or per Gb of use. So I guess publishers could use it as a lever to get more money out of people -- at which point I would not use it since I read research literature and am, hence, unusually aware of the weaknesses in human ability to get the best deal for a service.
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I ticked £20 per month. That’s how much cable costs. It’s about two new paperbacks in paper or half an academic text.
I don’t often re-read books so the ownership is symbollic for me. I’m a big fan of the John Schumman lyric from Where Ya Gonna Run to Now “the books on your shelves are a measure of all that you’ve learned”. How would I demonstrate my status as a man of learning if visitors to my home are not confronted with a wall of books?
The catalogue would be very important in making the decision. What I’m missing from the library is a back catalogue of science fiction and lots of specialist non-fiction.
The author payment is tricky and the way it works for short songs is probably not going to be the way it works for long books. Not a problem that I need to solve tho’. I’d let the authors, rights owners and E-library suppliers sort it out for themselves on whatever terms make sense to them.
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(x) We already have it, and it's called a public library.
I would be willing to pay up to...
(x) Nothing. We already have it, and it's called a public library.
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Books I would like to read once and then not read again. (There are millions of these.)
Books I would like to have on my bookshelf forever and ever amen. (There are about 180 of these. They aren't always the same 180, as I get older.)
I don't read near as many of the first kind of books as I would like, a bit because I don't want to pay for them, but mostly because I don't want to keep accumulating books I have no intention of reading again and then have to figure out how to get rid of them (this keeps happening anyway, but, you know, I'd like to have it happen less). The kind of service you suggest would be ideal.
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And, throw in unlimited fiction reading, and I'm happy. I'd still buy a ton of books, though. I'm still buying paper books as well as reading on a kindle.
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If I'd bought all the games I've got on Steam at full price (which I certainly didn't do!) then that averages to £27 a month on computer games.
I'd happily pay around £50 a month to be able to play any games I wanted, when I wanted, for as long as I wanted.
Spotify is stupidly cheap, but while I would be happier paying more, I suspect many might not be.
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I no-longer want a library. That might not sound weird (who wants a library?!), but as a kid & teen, I always wanted a library!
Key reason I'd pay for a service is new books. Libraries are rubbish for new books in general. That said, a fiver every week or few days for a new download is not a problem - some of my colleagues spend that on Starbucks.
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Nope, still probably not. I'm not reading enough fiction/light nonfiction at the moment to make a monthly fee worthwhile, and the academic stuff is much better in paper form since I only have limited screen space but can have nigh-unlimited physical books spread all over my apartment. And that's not getting into the physical comfort of sprawling with a book versus trying to find a comfortable reading position with my netbook.
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