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People complaining forget what the industry was like before audible. It was terrible. Audiobook cost an absolute fortune, and selections were very limited. Audi

People complaining forget what the industry was like before audible. It was terrible. Audiobook cost an absolute fortune, and selections were very limited. Audiobooks in the late 20th century were, I imagine, simular to paper books in 18th century. Something most of the population could not afford to own. I have been listening, and loving, audiobook for a very long time audible was, and still is, a breath of fresh air. Combined with the similarly lax attitude to drm as the amazom kindle, removing drm is simple. Audible has created a market that publishers were either ignoring completely or extreme price gouging (or some of both) .

tty2300 7y ago
Before online audio books we borrowed then from the library for free.
- bgeeek 7y ago
  True, before MP3, we used to borrow CDs from the library and copy them to tape, too. Libraries were brilliant as an impoverished student :)
- jogjayr 7y ago
  I still borrow audio books from the library for free using the Libby app.
Doubl 7y ago
In the late 20th century I almost weekly got an audiobook in tape cassette form from my local public library to listen to in my car. As far as I can remember they cost me nothing. They had a room full of the things, so the selection was enormous. I have particular memories of listening to James Lee burke's books read by Mark Hammer. Later in the noughties I joined audible but it wasn't cheap and they had a couple of sharp practices that turned me right off. The first was that you couldn't carry over credits. The second was they made it hard to cancel. Then there was the way they leaned on the audio software guy whose software allowed you to remove the drm, so you could burn to disk in mp3 rather than the only supported way which would have required a bunch of CDs per book. Bottom line for me today is they're too expensive. Being restricted also to one book a month (was two back then) for the same cost as Spotify and Netflix combined is a joke
- powerapple 7y ago
  Scribd now offers unlimited audio books at cheaper price. Although the selection is smaller than audible, they offer books as well as music sheets.
  - Doubl 7y ago
    Excellent, think I'll give them a go, thanks. Also they have time magazine and others included, looks very good

tty2300 7y ago

Before online audio books we borrowed then from the library for free.

bgeeek 7y ago
True, before MP3, we used to borrow CDs from the library and copy them to tape, too. Libraries were brilliant as an impoverished student :)
jogjayr 7y ago
I still borrow audio books from the library for free using the Libby app.

Doubl 7y ago

In the late 20th century I almost weekly got an audiobook in tape cassette form from my local public library to listen to in my car. As far as I can remember they cost me nothing. They had a room full of the things, so the selection was enormous. I have particular memories of listening to James Lee burke's books read by Mark Hammer. Later in the noughties I joined audible but it wasn't cheap and they had a couple of sharp practices that turned me right off. The first was that you couldn't carry over credits. The second was they made it hard to cancel. Then there was the way they leaned on the audio software guy whose software allowed you to remove the drm, so you could burn to disk in mp3 rather than the only supported way which would have required a bunch of CDs per book. Bottom line for me today is they're too expensive. Being restricted also to one book a month (was two back then) for the same cost as Spotify and Netflix combined is a joke

powerapple 7y ago
Scribd now offers unlimited audio books at cheaper price. Although the selection is smaller than audible, they offer books as well as music sheets.
- Doubl 7y ago
  Excellent, think I'll give them a go, thanks. Also they have time magazine and others included, looks very good