8 ms·

Do e-books count? I hope so, they have the same capability or even better (search), and no environmental impact

Scarblac 8y ago
Boekenweek is organised by book stores, if you buy a book in that week you get an extra one free, the "boekenweek present". It's exclusively written for that edition boekenweek and can be used as a train ticket on sunday. E-books have great features no doubt, but people buy them online, and traditional book stores aren't fans.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  Sounds like a massive subsidy to bookstores. Ironically, I bet people today read far more than ever, as that's how they interact with their phones.
  - Scarblac 8y ago
    Subsidy? I don't think there is much government money involved, except that the railways are state-owned.
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      I don't know specifically about the Dutch railways, but government operated utilities usually are subsidized by the taxpayers. It's certainly true in Seattle, where the government transportation network operates at massive losses made up by the taxpayers.
      - Scarblac 8y ago
        In the Netherlands it's a bit complicated. The rail infrastructure company (ProRail) is subsidized (just like e.g. highways), but the national railway company (NS) that runs most of the passenger trains on it actually pays for the privilege and isn't subsidized. But this sponsorship just makes sense as marketing for them, they want to be seen as a way to travel that can be combined with reading a book, since you can't driving a car. That is not "massive subsidy".
      - mcv 8y ago
        The NS is government owned, but not government operated. They privatised and liberalised the public transport market during the neoliberal privatisation wave of the 1990s, despite trains obviously being a natural monopoly in their own market. It later got split into the railway infrastructure (ProRail, which owns the tracks) and railway operation (NS, which runs the trains and competes to a limited extent with other train companies). NS runs at a profit, though may receive subsidies to run non-profitable lines, though other operators can also bid on those lines, and particularly in less densely populated, and therefore less profitable, parts of the country, some of these lines are run by other companies (usually either foreign owned or set up by bus companies). Personally I think the real profit of a good public transit system should not be in money, but in public mobility. More people using the train also means less cars on the road and therefore less traffic jams. And being run for profit makes the NS care less about that aspect. For that reason, I'd prefer if they'd kept it state-operated and run specifically as an alternative to cars.
j0057 8y ago
There's infrastructure involved in delivering an ebook to the customer, data centers to store them on, devices with rare metals to read them on, ... You could maybe argue (or not) that that's environmentally more friendly than pressing a book on paper and physically delivering that to a person, but 'no environmental impact' seems like a stretch.
Denvercoder9 8y ago
Yes, e-books count as well.

Boekenweek is organised by book stores, if you buy a book in that week you get an extra one free, the "boekenweek present". It's exclusively written for that edition boekenweek and can be used as a train ticket on sunday. E-books have great features no doubt, but people buy them online, and traditional book stores aren't fans.

skookumchuck 8y ago
Sounds like a massive subsidy to bookstores. Ironically, I bet people today read far more than ever, as that's how they interact with their phones.
- Scarblac 8y ago
  Subsidy? I don't think there is much government money involved, except that the railways are state-owned.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    I don't know specifically about the Dutch railways, but government operated utilities usually are subsidized by the taxpayers. It's certainly true in Seattle, where the government transportation network operates at massive losses made up by the taxpayers.
    - Scarblac 8y ago
      In the Netherlands it's a bit complicated. The rail infrastructure company (ProRail) is subsidized (just like e.g. highways), but the national railway company (NS) that runs most of the passenger trains on it actually pays for the privilege and isn't subsidized. But this sponsorship just makes sense as marketing for them, they want to be seen as a way to travel that can be combined with reading a book, since you can't driving a car. That is not "massive subsidy".
    - mcv 8y ago
      The NS is government owned, but not government operated. They privatised and liberalised the public transport market during the neoliberal privatisation wave of the 1990s, despite trains obviously being a natural monopoly in their own market. It later got split into the railway infrastructure (ProRail, which owns the tracks) and railway operation (NS, which runs the trains and competes to a limited extent with other train companies). NS runs at a profit, though may receive subsidies to run non-profitable lines, though other operators can also bid on those lines, and particularly in less densely populated, and therefore less profitable, parts of the country, some of these lines are run by other companies (usually either foreign owned or set up by bus companies). Personally I think the real profit of a good public transit system should not be in money, but in public mobility. More people using the train also means less cars on the road and therefore less traffic jams. And being run for profit makes the NS care less about that aspect. For that reason, I'd prefer if they'd kept it state-operated and run specifically as an alternative to cars.

j0057 8y ago

There's infrastructure involved in delivering an ebook to the customer, data centers to store them on, devices with rare metals to read them on, ... You could maybe argue (or not) that that's environmentally more friendly than pressing a book on paper and physically delivering that to a person, but 'no environmental impact' seems like a stretch.

Denvercoder9 8y ago

Yes, e-books count as well.