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Not really. It's not to my taste, but I've found their journalism to generally be lefty but focused on important events. Like Amazon consuming and presumably d

Not really. It's not to my taste, but I've found their journalism to generally be lefty but focused on important events. Like Amazon consuming and presumably destroying rare books should be enraging to everyone, regardless of political persuasion. The difference is huge between 404 and Fox. Fox is out here trying to tell people there's a trans agenda, and that Biden was a lunatic leftist. They are just making up stories and publishing them because they know their audience engages. 404 definitely make editorial choices about which stories to pursue but I've largely found them to be grounded in real depictions of stuff that is happening.

infecto 2mo ago
Again, what rare books? Like they pointed to a book with low published volume or foreign language is “rare”. If you have ever been to annual library book sales you start to realize just how many books get thrown out. I can go buy a stack of books from the 1880s and 1890s on eBay right now for $25. $4 each. Most people don’t realize how worthless books are, even “rare” ones. I even imagine that the market price for these “rare” books is helping filter out anything truly valuable and rare. It just reads as a rage bait tmz article. The quantity of used books including “rare” books that get thrown into the dump is astronomical.
- forestrywat 2mo ago
  I worked in a bookshop. I know all about this. I've seen pallets of books with covers torn off so they can be reported destroyed. Here's a bookseller describing some of the books, which he believes are going to middlemen who are playing a sort of arbitrage with the AI companies by buying obscure titles, reselling them, and tossing away anything that doesn't sell. https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/is-an-ai-company-buying-up-all-the https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/is-an-ai-company-buying...
  - rpdillon 2mo ago
    The titles mentioned there are not rage-inducing: "The Insider’s Guide to Metro Denver from 1995" and "How to Use Corel WordPerfect 1991". 404 writes and article about book destruction, and then explicitly neglects to mention a single title. I suspect that's because folks wouldn't react the same way if they realized it was computer manuals for Windows 3.1. Even more obviously, Amazon doesn't want to be paying a lot for these books, so it seems outlandish that they'd be buying valuable rarities, since the booksellers would know the worth of those copies. Good reporting on this would have included sales prices, volumes, and titles.
kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
You don't know the books are being destroyed. There are automated scanners with page turners.
- forestrywat 2mo ago
  Most reporting says they are being destroyed. Page flipping is slow compared to cutting the spine and scanning the pages.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
    They destroy regular books. This was an intentional order from a rare book dealer. There is no reason to believe they use the same destructive process for books they should know to have inherent value and aren't purchasing in significant volume.
    - infecto 2mo ago
      I don’t think we read the same article. None of these books were identified and they said rare can be low print volume or foreign language.
- natebc 2mo ago
  [dead]
yonran 2mo ago
> Like Amazon consuming and presumably destroying rare books should be enraging to everyone, regardless of political persuasion. No, destroying collectible books would be a shame, not just any rare worthless books. But these are not collectible. The article tried to dance around it by saying maybe some books have a sentimental value to someone somewhere. But that doesn’t mean any library or collector wants it. Don’t fall for manufactured outrage! Edit: Here’s an example of an extremely rare book. My great great grandfather published a book of sermons around 1920. That book has zero value to anyone other than my dad. Would I be outraged if it ended up at someone’s estate sale, then a used bookstore, and then an LLM consumed it to learn to read? No; I would have expected it to have been discarded by humans before the LLM even got to it. Most of what we leave behind is discarded.
- infecto 2mo ago
  This was my issue as well. It seems like they tip toed around it in one paragraph saying usually these are books with isbn numbers so not truly collectible or very rare and then in another paragraph plainly stated that it could be foreign language or low volume books that are rare. Rare expresses a different meaning to me and I think it amounts to exactly what you said, manufactured outrage.
- forestrywat 2mo ago
  We recently had a post highly upvoted here that collected bus tickets from an earlier era. It showed the unique moment in time where such fares were highly detailed, unique pieces of art. Ultimately destined to be single use and largely extremely pedestrian. We've also seen a website that collects old paper restaurant placemats from across the ages. Literally disposable, zero value items that were made to be discarded by the thousands. And yet, when someone has an interesting idea that ties them together, makes us recollect or think about our past in some novel way, these useless uncommon things suddenly become quite interesting. A book on sermons, o its own, from the 1920s is maybe not that interesting. A book of sermons selected from each decade? A collection that compares regional books of sermons? A compare and contrast of the 2020s and 1920s? I can imagine many interesting thesis where a book like that becomes interesting because of the context of other books that are juxtaposed to it. A book on Detroit motorways and bus schedules from the 30s isn't interesting or valuable on its own. But when you contextualize it, suddenly it might be a way to understand our history, our path through development and redevelopment. Connecting our present moment to the past.
SkyeCA 2mo ago
Something can be "rare" while also having no value. One only needs to take a look at their local Facebook Marketplace listings to see this in action. Rare invokes images of limited edition runs of well loved books, when in reality it's probably extremely outdated software guides, how-tos, technical manuals, etc.

infecto 2mo ago

Again, what rare books? Like they pointed to a book with low published volume or foreign language is “rare”. If you have ever been to annual library book sales you start to realize just how many books get thrown out. I can go buy a stack of books from the 1880s and 1890s on eBay right now for $25. $4 each. Most people don’t realize how worthless books are, even “rare” ones. I even imagine that the market price for these “rare” books is helping filter out anything truly valuable and rare. It just reads as a rage bait tmz article. The quantity of used books including “rare” books that get thrown into the dump is astronomical.

forestrywat 2mo ago
I worked in a bookshop. I know all about this. I've seen pallets of books with covers torn off so they can be reported destroyed. Here's a bookseller describing some of the books, which he believes are going to middlemen who are playing a sort of arbitrage with the AI companies by buying obscure titles, reselling them, and tossing away anything that doesn't sell. https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/is-an-ai-company-buying-up-all-the https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/is-an-ai-company-buying...
- rpdillon 2mo ago
  The titles mentioned there are not rage-inducing: "The Insider’s Guide to Metro Denver from 1995" and "How to Use Corel WordPerfect 1991". 404 writes and article about book destruction, and then explicitly neglects to mention a single title. I suspect that's because folks wouldn't react the same way if they realized it was computer manuals for Windows 3.1. Even more obviously, Amazon doesn't want to be paying a lot for these books, so it seems outlandish that they'd be buying valuable rarities, since the booksellers would know the worth of those copies. Good reporting on this would have included sales prices, volumes, and titles.

kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago

You don't know the books are being destroyed. There are automated scanners with page turners.

forestrywat 2mo ago
Most reporting says they are being destroyed. Page flipping is slow compared to cutting the spine and scanning the pages.
- kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
  They destroy regular books. This was an intentional order from a rare book dealer. There is no reason to believe they use the same destructive process for books they should know to have inherent value and aren't purchasing in significant volume.
  - infecto 2mo ago
    I don’t think we read the same article. None of these books were identified and they said rare can be low print volume or foreign language.
natebc 2mo ago
[dead]

yonran 2mo ago

> Like Amazon consuming and presumably destroying rare books should be enraging to everyone, regardless of political persuasion. No, destroying collectible books would be a shame, not just any rare worthless books. But these are not collectible. The article tried to dance around it by saying maybe some books have a sentimental value to someone somewhere. But that doesn’t mean any library or collector wants it. Don’t fall for manufactured outrage! Edit: Here’s an example of an extremely rare book. My great great grandfather published a book of sermons around 1920. That book has zero value to anyone other than my dad. Would I be outraged if it ended up at someone’s estate sale, then a used bookstore, and then an LLM consumed it to learn to read? No; I would have expected it to have been discarded by humans before the LLM even got to it. Most of what we leave behind is discarded.

infecto 2mo ago
This was my issue as well. It seems like they tip toed around it in one paragraph saying usually these are books with isbn numbers so not truly collectible or very rare and then in another paragraph plainly stated that it could be foreign language or low volume books that are rare. Rare expresses a different meaning to me and I think it amounts to exactly what you said, manufactured outrage.
forestrywat 2mo ago
We recently had a post highly upvoted here that collected bus tickets from an earlier era. It showed the unique moment in time where such fares were highly detailed, unique pieces of art. Ultimately destined to be single use and largely extremely pedestrian. We've also seen a website that collects old paper restaurant placemats from across the ages. Literally disposable, zero value items that were made to be discarded by the thousands. And yet, when someone has an interesting idea that ties them together, makes us recollect or think about our past in some novel way, these useless uncommon things suddenly become quite interesting. A book on sermons, o its own, from the 1920s is maybe not that interesting. A book of sermons selected from each decade? A collection that compares regional books of sermons? A compare and contrast of the 2020s and 1920s? I can imagine many interesting thesis where a book like that becomes interesting because of the context of other books that are juxtaposed to it. A book on Detroit motorways and bus schedules from the 30s isn't interesting or valuable on its own. But when you contextualize it, suddenly it might be a way to understand our history, our path through development and redevelopment. Connecting our present moment to the past.

SkyeCA 2mo ago

Something can be "rare" while also having no value. One only needs to take a look at their local Facebook Marketplace listings to see this in action. Rare invokes images of limited edition runs of well loved books, when in reality it's probably extremely outdated software guides, how-tos, technical manuals, etc.