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TL;DR: The keyword reply to your post is the word "library". > a) Physical degradation: The book that's been read 500 times will generally be in pretty bad sha

by Fnoord 7y ago

TL;DR: The keyword reply to your post is the word "library". > a) Physical degradation: The book that's been read 500 times will generally be in pretty bad shape. 500 times is a lot, but either way, it still works perfectly fine. Which is why libraries tended to work well. > Transaction costs coming from locality: I can't transmit a book from SF to NY for free. It costs time /and/ money Not much time if they pick it up or if you combine it with grocery shopping. Money: you can sell it. Then the buyer pays the transport costs. Yes, it does add up, but in my country selling a book on a platform only costs about 5 EUR extra. There is a difference between adding such 5 EUR to the total cost of resell, and making it downright impossible to resell (the current situation). It used to be a lot cheaper to sell books before globalism. You'd do it on a flea market, or give it away to the library. Then people get to use it as well. That book you own, you can probably sell it to someone in SF instead of NY (which has less carbon footprint as well). Basically, there is something inherent in humans that yes they like to collect, but they also like to get rid of things and have others reuse it. Which is why books do reach second hand markets. Why can we not do the same for games? Because of artificial barriers, that is why. Artificial barriers like these can be solved by law.

sdenton4 7y ago
Again, libraries have a finite supply of media: If a book isn't available, many library users trade money for time and buy a new copy. Indeed, new and popular books may have a wait time of months to get a copy. The library model is very different from the unbounded-online-secondhand-store (UOSS). The library will typically scale the number of copies of a popular book, but with some limit and longterm lookahead. The UOSS will get new used copies of a book until saturated, and then have effectively infinite copies going forward, like a used bookstore that never has to worry about floorspace for inventory. Now, it actually hurts my soul a bit to argue this side of things. I completely get, sympathize, and 99% of the time am on the side of making content available by any means necessary... It might be a good compromise would be something like limiting resale of a given copy to one per year. The concern is making sure content creators can get paid during periods of 'hotness' while still making things easily available during the cool (or deep-freeze) periods. In any case, actual modeling is needed... 'It'll be ok, libraries exist' doesn't cut it.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > Again, libraries have a finite supply of media: If a book isn't available, many library users trade money for time and buy a new copy. Well, as a kid, I had this subscription to a library. I could not afford new books, so I went to the library instead (which I already paid for). If my library didn't have it, I went to a different one. Else, I had to request it for Christmas or my birthday. Popular books were common in the library, and some even multiple copies. As a library, you can register when people request a book a lot, and obtain a copy of it. > The UOSS will get new used copies of a book until saturated, and then have effectively infinite copies going forward, like a used bookstore that never has to worry about floorspace for inventory. My experience with this is: scarce books are very expensive, and common books get volume. If you want to limit resale to only occur once, I feel like that is a good artificial compromise. It could also be a temporary measure to have the industry adapt to it. But I find that a bit of emotional blackmail. Commercial world is tough, adapt to changes... that's the way when you go commercial.

by Fnoord 7y ago

sdenton4 7y ago

Again, libraries have a finite supply of media: If a book isn't available, many library users trade money for time and buy a new copy. Indeed, new and popular books may have a wait time of months to get a copy. The library model is very different from the unbounded-online-secondhand-store (UOSS). The library will typically scale the number of copies of a popular book, but with some limit and longterm lookahead. The UOSS will get new used copies of a book until saturated, and then have effectively infinite copies going forward, like a used bookstore that never has to worry about floorspace for inventory. Now, it actually hurts my soul a bit to argue this side of things. I completely get, sympathize, and 99% of the time am on the side of making content available by any means necessary... It might be a good compromise would be something like limiting resale of a given copy to one per year. The concern is making sure content creators can get paid during periods of 'hotness' while still making things easily available during the cool (or deep-freeze) periods. In any case, actual modeling is needed... 'It'll be ok, libraries exist' doesn't cut it.

Fnoord 7y ago
> Again, libraries have a finite supply of media: If a book isn't available, many library users trade money for time and buy a new copy. Well, as a kid, I had this subscription to a library. I could not afford new books, so I went to the library instead (which I already paid for). If my library didn't have it, I went to a different one. Else, I had to request it for Christmas or my birthday. Popular books were common in the library, and some even multiple copies. As a library, you can register when people request a book a lot, and obtain a copy of it. > The UOSS will get new used copies of a book until saturated, and then have effectively infinite copies going forward, like a used bookstore that never has to worry about floorspace for inventory. My experience with this is: scarce books are very expensive, and common books get volume. If you want to limit resale to only occur once, I feel like that is a good artificial compromise. It could also be a temporary measure to have the industry adapt to it. But I find that a bit of emotional blackmail. Commercial world is tough, adapt to changes... that's the way when you go commercial.