3 ms·

I start from the premise that eBooks should cost less, because you get less. No right to lend, no right to sell, no way to insure against loss or theft, no guar

I start from the premise that eBooks should cost less, because you get less. No right to lend, no right to sell, no way to insure against loss or theft, no guarantee you can even read it a couple of years down the road if the platform fails in the market. In effect, you "buy" something but never actually own it. You'd have to drop the price pretty low to interest me under these circumstances. (I've picked up a few $5 O'Reilly titles on the App Store, but probably wouldn't even have done that if they weren't basically DRM-free ePubs with a reader wrapped around them.)

tptacek 16y ago
I value my electronic copy of _Infinite Jest_ more highly than my physical copy: * The physical copy is run ragged because you have to flip from the front to the back of the book constantly * In the electronic copy, if I tap the word catastatic in the text, I'm immediately presented with the definition. In the paper copy, it's just annoying enough to look that up that I'm inclined to try to derive the meaning from context, which is a trap DFW seems inclined to spring mercilessly. * Similarly, in the electronic version, and anyone who has read IJ will see immediately the value of this, when I tap a footnote number, I'm immediately taken to the text of the footnote, and I can instantly return back to the text. This speeds up my reading time of the book significantly. Do these factors matter to you? Of course they don't. I'm a dork and I'm just namedropping a prestige book to make a point in the most puffy way possible. But: I value these features a lot more than "right to lend", "right to sell", "insurance against loss", etc. And in a free market, I'm allowed to do that. And, though this is a stretch and you won't be happy to hear me claim this, I think I'm closer to the opinion of the bulk of the market than you are.

tptacek 16y ago

I value my electronic copy of _Infinite Jest_ more highly than my physical copy: * The physical copy is run ragged because you have to flip from the front to the back of the book constantly * In the electronic copy, if I tap the word catastatic in the text, I'm immediately presented with the definition. In the paper copy, it's just annoying enough to look that up that I'm inclined to try to derive the meaning from context, which is a trap DFW seems inclined to spring mercilessly. * Similarly, in the electronic version, and anyone who has read IJ will see immediately the value of this, when I tap a footnote number, I'm immediately taken to the text of the footnote, and I can instantly return back to the text. This speeds up my reading time of the book significantly. Do these factors matter to you? Of course they don't. I'm a dork and I'm just namedropping a prestige book to make a point in the most puffy way possible. But: I value these features a lot more than "right to lend", "right to sell", "insurance against loss", etc. And in a free market, I'm allowed to do that. And, though this is a stretch and you won't be happy to hear me claim this, I think I'm closer to the opinion of the bulk of the market than you are.