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Well, taking it to absurd levels it would be something like if Spotify were to claim they are 'selling' songs to people who are currently listening to them and
by contravariant 5y ago
Well, taking it to absurd levels it would be something like if Spotify were to claim they are 'selling' songs to people who are currently listening to them and they are 'returned' when people stop, with Spotify just paying royalties over the difference.
The situation with audiobooks is far less extreme, but there is a cost attached to lenient return policies. Though you'd expect Amazon to be losing more money on it than the authors, so it's more like the authors disagree with Amazon's business model.
- gambiting 5y agoI'd love to know the stats for how many people listen to the entire book(or 90% of it) and then return it. I have refunded books on audible before, but it was always because I didn't like the narrator, I listen to books while driving and sometimes the narration works in the car, sometimes it really doesn't - that's when I refund and get something else, but it's always within the first hour of listening.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoFurthermore, Audible only lets you return 2-3 books self-serve before you have to go through customer service. This small friction is a real impediment to abuse of the system, and I highly doubt Audible won't refuse returns if you return one every month. I think I've returned 4-5 books total, out of 62 over the last 6 years[1]. All were because either I really didn't like the book, or the narration volume wasn't very well balanced (road noise means turning the volume up to hear the quiet parts, then getting your eardrums blasted out on the loud parts). [1] It's hard to believe that I've spent 35+ entire days listening to audiobooks. That's nuts.