5 ms·

>Cut out the middlemen. Torrent it and send the author some money. If this is the ideal model, why don't authors skip the middleman themselves and just put the

>Cut out the middlemen. Torrent it and send the author some money. If this is the ideal model, why don't authors skip the middleman themselves and just put the .pdf/.epub on their website directly in exchange for donations? On the same note, why do game devs need to give Steam 30% of their money and not just sell to the public directly and pocket the 30%? Maybe because those middlemen platforms provide a combination of discoverability, user review rating system, network effect, convenience, and trusted return policy at scale that's valuable to both consumers and developers/authors enough for both parties to tolerate it as the status quo even if it's not perfect, it's just good enough to be the default.

CuriouslyC 3mo ago
Because Amazon gets millions of views per day, and their personal website gets a dozen or so. Literally the only reason.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
zbentley 3mo ago
> why don't authors skip the middleman themselves and just put the .pdf/.epub on their website directly in exchange for donations? Some do! https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
- shimman 3mo ago
  Read the Rifter's trilogy because of this, quite good IMO. Made buying Blindsight in hardcopy way easier once money wasn't a strain.
paul7986 3mo ago
or use Cloudflare's "Pay Per Use," tech so real humans and or more so AI sucking up your content for free is forced to pay you something to gain access.
- MaKey 3mo ago
  Cloudflare is just another middleman.
  - paul7986 3mo ago
    sure but it would be nice if AI paid it's fair share in many different ways for humans keeping it relevant. Open AI wants to provide all Americans stock options, which is one way but the more the merrier.
    - joe_mamba 3mo ago
      >sure but it would be nice if AI paid it's fair share in many different ways for humans keeping it relevant Oh that's coming, don;t you worry, the legislative part just hasn't caught up with the LLM business yet since none of them are making much profit yet so there's nothing you can shake out of them yet What I mean by this is, in many EU countries, the unions of creative artist have lobbied the government to make us pay a "piracy tax" on all storage devices sold in the country, from blank CDs and HHDs to SSDs and mobile phones with EMMC/NAND. The same thing will happen with AI companies, once they become profitable enough, they'll force the consumers subscription prices to include an extra tax that will go back to the major rights holder part of the unions.
      - paul7986 3mo ago
        Sure and we as developers can vibe code other systems / ways to ensure we get paid for keeping AI relevant.
        joe_mamba 3mo ago
        SW developers don't have the union bargaining power the music and arts industry has. At least not where I live.
the_af 3mo ago
This should be relatively easy to disrupt for ebooks. It doesn't seem necessary to have the infrastructure and pockets of Amazon to sell ebooks (and be fairer to authors and readers). I'm not convinced about discoverability, I don't browse random books or look for recommendations on Amazon; to me Amazon is the final stop once I know the ebook I want to buy. Literally a search bar for the book I already want. I don't use Amazon as a shelf of books to peruse, and I never look for recommended products (especially not books). I think it's mostly the integration with Kindle, and the reputation ("I trust Amazon so I'll enter my credit card"). This should be feasible to overcome by a better platform. And Amazon seem hell bent on ruining their reputation...
- boznz 3mo ago
  But how do you know the books you want to buy in the first place? That's the Indie creators dilemma, sometimes good creators are terrible marketers, or have no budget, and their creation is undiscovered from the others that spend, market or game the system.
  - the_af 3mo ago
    I agree it's a difficult problem. For scifi, I usually look for Hugo or Nebula winners, but also word of mouth and recommendations. Never Amazon! I also don't know anyone who goes to Amazon to look for book recommendations, but that might be my bubble. I buy a LOT of books in brick and mortar stores, my preferred method of browsing books.
    - boznz 3mo ago
      Yes unfortunately any system can be gamified once the incentives are there: Best wine, best movie, best album, best keyboard, best monitor, the list goes on. Hugo or Nebula winners, and any other "winner" for that matter are usually actively sponsored and artificially pushed onto the nomination lists by their publishers/influencers/etc, there is just no way the judges can read the 1000's of novels that come out each year. Occasionally indie authors beat the system like Andy Weir with the Martian, but that took both good writing and a lot of traction from his online community for it to go viral and for it to get recognition.
boznz 3mo ago
Many of us do. But the majority of ebook readers will: a)never find us and b)just want to click buy now not download epub (from a site they have never heard of) then transfer to kindle manually. So best to cover your bases and give them the Amazon option too.
- DrewADesign 3mo ago
  Yeah… There’s a few things I think the tech crowd misses the mark on when discussing media creators of all sorts: - A vast gulf separates the potential exposure on established platforms vs smaller or DIY platforms, and that dramatically affects income. Same with usability of the platform on a whole. When a nontechnical person sees that they have to put down their phone, boot up a computer (which they might not even own,) download a couple of programs, etc. etc. etc. they’ll be on Amazon, seconds later, pricing out the new kindles. That sucks, but if you make media of any sort for a living, you can’t just pretend that isn’t true. - There‘a a huge difference in strategy between being a hobbyist/side hustler and being a full-time professional. You can’t just scale your hobby business up like that. - Wanting to make a living as a writer, designer, artist, musician, etc. is not a moral failure. Few would deride developers who want to be paid for their work instead of exclusively making FOSS software and hoping for donations. I’m not sure why creatives doing the same thing are seen as greedy.
mekoka 3mo ago
> If this is the ideal model, why don't authors skip the middleman themselves and just put the .pdf/.epub on their website directly in exchange for donations? > On the same note, why do game devs need to give Steam 30% of their money and not just sell to the public directly and pocket the 30%? We're needlessly making this into a general problem. Why hastily discuss ideal models? The current model is fine and the issue isn't generalized. We're talking about having the option to skip asshole middlemen, or to be more specific, Amazon. A company so big that solving this special case on its own leaps us a huge portion of the way into solving the problem at large. Is the general sentiment that Steam is also an asshole?

CuriouslyC 3mo ago

Because Amazon gets millions of views per day, and their personal website gets a dozen or so. Literally the only reason.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

zbentley 3mo ago

> why don't authors skip the middleman themselves and just put the .pdf/.epub on their website directly in exchange for donations? Some do! https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

shimman 3mo ago
Read the Rifter's trilogy because of this, quite good IMO. Made buying Blindsight in hardcopy way easier once money wasn't a strain.

paul7986 3mo ago

or use Cloudflare's "Pay Per Use," tech so real humans and or more so AI sucking up your content for free is forced to pay you something to gain access.

MaKey 3mo ago
Cloudflare is just another middleman.
- paul7986 3mo ago
  sure but it would be nice if AI paid it's fair share in many different ways for humans keeping it relevant. Open AI wants to provide all Americans stock options, which is one way but the more the merrier.
  - joe_mamba 3mo ago
    >sure but it would be nice if AI paid it's fair share in many different ways for humans keeping it relevant Oh that's coming, don;t you worry, the legislative part just hasn't caught up with the LLM business yet since none of them are making much profit yet so there's nothing you can shake out of them yet What I mean by this is, in many EU countries, the unions of creative artist have lobbied the government to make us pay a "piracy tax" on all storage devices sold in the country, from blank CDs and HHDs to SSDs and mobile phones with EMMC/NAND. The same thing will happen with AI companies, once they become profitable enough, they'll force the consumers subscription prices to include an extra tax that will go back to the major rights holder part of the unions.
    - paul7986 3mo ago
      Sure and we as developers can vibe code other systems / ways to ensure we get paid for keeping AI relevant.
      - joe_mamba 3mo ago
        SW developers don't have the union bargaining power the music and arts industry has. At least not where I live.

the_af 3mo ago

This should be relatively easy to disrupt for ebooks. It doesn't seem necessary to have the infrastructure and pockets of Amazon to sell ebooks (and be fairer to authors and readers). I'm not convinced about discoverability, I don't browse random books or look for recommendations on Amazon; to me Amazon is the final stop once I know the ebook I want to buy. Literally a search bar for the book I already want. I don't use Amazon as a shelf of books to peruse, and I never look for recommended products (especially not books). I think it's mostly the integration with Kindle, and the reputation ("I trust Amazon so I'll enter my credit card"). This should be feasible to overcome by a better platform. And Amazon seem hell bent on ruining their reputation...

boznz 3mo ago
But how do you know the books you want to buy in the first place? That's the Indie creators dilemma, sometimes good creators are terrible marketers, or have no budget, and their creation is undiscovered from the others that spend, market or game the system.
- the_af 3mo ago
  I agree it's a difficult problem. For scifi, I usually look for Hugo or Nebula winners, but also word of mouth and recommendations. Never Amazon! I also don't know anyone who goes to Amazon to look for book recommendations, but that might be my bubble. I buy a LOT of books in brick and mortar stores, my preferred method of browsing books.
  - boznz 3mo ago
    Yes unfortunately any system can be gamified once the incentives are there: Best wine, best movie, best album, best keyboard, best monitor, the list goes on. Hugo or Nebula winners, and any other "winner" for that matter are usually actively sponsored and artificially pushed onto the nomination lists by their publishers/influencers/etc, there is just no way the judges can read the 1000's of novels that come out each year. Occasionally indie authors beat the system like Andy Weir with the Martian, but that took both good writing and a lot of traction from his online community for it to go viral and for it to get recognition.

boznz 3mo ago

Many of us do. But the majority of ebook readers will: a)never find us and b)just want to click buy now not download epub (from a site they have never heard of) then transfer to kindle manually. So best to cover your bases and give them the Amazon option too.

DrewADesign 3mo ago
Yeah… There’s a few things I think the tech crowd misses the mark on when discussing media creators of all sorts: - A vast gulf separates the potential exposure on established platforms vs smaller or DIY platforms, and that dramatically affects income. Same with usability of the platform on a whole. When a nontechnical person sees that they have to put down their phone, boot up a computer (which they might not even own,) download a couple of programs, etc. etc. etc. they’ll be on Amazon, seconds later, pricing out the new kindles. That sucks, but if you make media of any sort for a living, you can’t just pretend that isn’t true. - There‘a a huge difference in strategy between being a hobbyist/side hustler and being a full-time professional. You can’t just scale your hobby business up like that. - Wanting to make a living as a writer, designer, artist, musician, etc. is not a moral failure. Few would deride developers who want to be paid for their work instead of exclusively making FOSS software and hoping for donations. I’m not sure why creatives doing the same thing are seen as greedy.

mekoka 3mo ago

> If this is the ideal model, why don't authors skip the middleman themselves and just put the .pdf/.epub on their website directly in exchange for donations? > On the same note, why do game devs need to give Steam 30% of their money and not just sell to the public directly and pocket the 30%? We're needlessly making this into a general problem. Why hastily discuss ideal models? The current model is fine and the issue isn't generalized. We're talking about having the option to skip asshole middlemen, or to be more specific, Amazon. A company so big that solving this special case on its own leaps us a huge portion of the way into solving the problem at large. Is the general sentiment that Steam is also an asshole?