7 ms·

Are they really? I've never spent more than a few days on a book, but I've certainly spent well over 300 hours on some video games. I love reading, but to me bo

Are they really? I've never spent more than a few days on a book, but I've certainly spent well over 300 hours on some video games. I love reading, but to me books seem quite expensive as an entertainment medium in comparison with computer games.

emodendroket 9y ago
There is tons of reading material available for free or for less than ten bucks and the setup costs are nothing (if you want to go e-books maybe fifty bucks). It is rare for me to play a single video game anywhere near 50 hours, let alone 300.
eswat 9y ago
One way to look at it is if you're getting any wisdom from books or video games that you can apply to real life, potentially getting more value from the experience and offsetting cost of acquisition.
dozzie 9y ago
...until you realize that we still have this old-fashioned institutions called libraries.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Uber for books, except you don't have to pay.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- galdosdi 9y ago
  Indeed! That said, library quality, much like school quality, can vary enormously by geography. Also like school quality, it's not entirely random, there's a pattern where wealthier communities often (though not always) tend to have better libraries. (I'm defining better as wider and deeper selection of books and ignoring anything else, like other library services, library hours, whatever.)
- 1123581321 9y ago
  Technically, it's not free, but you've already paid for it directly if you own property or indirectly through rent (as property tax factors into rental prices.) We pay $120 a year to our public library. We also pay another $100-200 a year in fines, program fees and special requests. This still comes out to well less than $5/book read.
nindalf 9y ago
I just finished a couple of books that take approximately 17 hours on average. They cost me $5 each on the Kindle store. Hard to beat $0.3/hr. I also spent a few hours at a LAN cafe yesterday, at $1/hr, which is a reasonable rate here in South Asia. Of course I could have gone to the library, but I read a lot more if the book is a tap away on my tablet.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I mean if a book is less than 15 bucks it might as well be free, practically speaking, for most people who post here.

emodendroket 9y ago

There is tons of reading material available for free or for less than ten bucks and the setup costs are nothing (if you want to go e-books maybe fifty bucks). It is rare for me to play a single video game anywhere near 50 hours, let alone 300.

eswat 9y ago

One way to look at it is if you're getting any wisdom from books or video games that you can apply to real life, potentially getting more value from the experience and offsetting cost of acquisition.

dozzie 9y ago

...until you realize that we still have this old-fashioned institutions called libraries.

emodendroket 9y ago
Uber for books, except you don't have to pay.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
galdosdi 9y ago
Indeed! That said, library quality, much like school quality, can vary enormously by geography. Also like school quality, it's not entirely random, there's a pattern where wealthier communities often (though not always) tend to have better libraries. (I'm defining better as wider and deeper selection of books and ignoring anything else, like other library services, library hours, whatever.)
1123581321 9y ago
Technically, it's not free, but you've already paid for it directly if you own property or indirectly through rent (as property tax factors into rental prices.) We pay $120 a year to our public library. We also pay another $100-200 a year in fines, program fees and special requests. This still comes out to well less than $5/book read.

nindalf 9y ago

I just finished a couple of books that take approximately 17 hours on average. They cost me $5 each on the Kindle store. Hard to beat $0.3/hr. I also spent a few hours at a LAN cafe yesterday, at $1/hr, which is a reasonable rate here in South Asia. Of course I could have gone to the library, but I read a lot more if the book is a tap away on my tablet.

emodendroket 9y ago
I mean if a book is less than 15 bucks it might as well be free, practically speaking, for most people who post here.