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The difference to me is that they're calling this a "bookstore," and the thing that they're selling is supposed to be a new way of consuming the thing that we t
by rrbrambley 14y ago
The difference to me is that they're calling this a "bookstore," and the thing that they're selling is supposed to be a new way of consuming the thing that we traditionally know as "books."
That's what I used to believe their business was.
Now, it's clear that an iBook is not a book. It is a digital material sold to people who like to consume content via their pretty and pricy devices. I agree that Apple makes it fun to consume content their way. And I'm sure that for the most part, people can still mostly absorb all the same knowledge that they would from a traditional paper book. But, this content has to be approved and modified to be consumed and therefor, it is not a book.
So the reason I am not comfortable with all this is for the reason I stated above. I was essentially tricked into believing they were selling books. Now that probably sounds extreme. But, the truth is that I am an educated "tech person" who looks at this stuff every day, and I did not think about this problem until now. The people they are trying to sell to are those in education, who are going to be raising and educating young people by reading these iBooks. When I was a kid, we were taught that books were magical and that the more we read, the more open our minds would become. In elementary school, we made us sing songs about books to make reading seem more fun and appealing.
If schools are adopting this form of content, then they are telling young people that the best way to learn things is via a model that is filtered (simply to increase Apple's profits).
- chc 14y agoHow is this different from a legacy bookstore? Apple is way more permissive than they are. You can't just walk into a legacy bookstore with a manuscript and say, "Here, sell this." Major distribution has always meant going through filters. The publishing houses reject most of the stuff that comes through their doors, and bookstores only buy a fraction of the stuff that the publishing houses put out. If you are scandalized that Apple rejects one book out of millions, I can only suppose it's because you aren't familiar with legacy publishing. Traditionally, only a tiny fraction of books ever had a chance to be seen by readers. (I say this not to defend Apple, per se, but to illustrate how good writers have really got it now if this is considered a subject of outrage. Just ten years ago, getting rejected was the expected outcome of trying to get a book published!)
- rrbrambley 14y agoIt's different because via Apple's model, you are holding the bookstore in your hands. There isn't an option to go to a different bookstore down the street, or order a book from a website that will send it to you in the mail. I'm thinking about the "ideal" (to Apple) world in which schools just expect content to be consumed this way (text books are a huge and important market), and it's disgusting. And yes, you are right. I am admittedly ignorant to the nuances and history of publishing, and am thus probably neglecting to look at this from different angles.
- ansgri 14y agoI fail to see how there's no option to go to a different bookstore: can't you order the book from Amazon from the same iPad?
- grey-area 14y agoOnly by going through the web browser, which apple can't now shut down without alienating too many users. If they thought they could get away with it, they would. They have actively worked to disable any other store - for example, the kindle app cannot allow purchases or even link to the kindle store online, you have to manually search out links online instead, then download. It's absurd, not in the users' interests, and an abuse of Apple's power over the platform, but that's what Apple require.
- taligent 14y agoWhat are you talking about ? There are plenty of alternate options to iBookStore. Nobody is forcing you to use it.
- kristianc 14y agoUnless I'm missing something, this is something which other "bookstores" in the offline space do routinely. The Rough Trade store down the road from me sells books which are pretty obviously curated around sections, and according to the preferences of the staff there, and, no doubt, by commercial imperatives too. If they can't make a margin they're happy with, ultimately there is no bookstore. The magical experiences in books which Rough Trade do not sell is neither here nor there, because if I don't like, value, or care for their curation, I can choose another bookstore. I don't see why this is any different.
- domador 14y agoA major difference is that an offline bookstore necessitates curation, due to limited physical space. Barring very extreme cases (such as trillions of books requiring petabytes of server space), an online bookstore doesn't require such curation. (An online bookstore could be selective about the titles it highlights in its front pages. But there is no need for making a book completely unavailable through restrictive policies such as these.)
- taligent 14y agoYour whole argument is wrong. If book stores are curating simply based on physical space then all of them would pick the top 1000 books in order to maximise profits. But they don't. They curate based on the type of books THEY want to sell and that represents them.