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Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits

278 points by geox 14d ago

itake 14d ago
Singapore libraries are really annoying for foreigners because they don’t let you use the WiFi. Thailand at least gives you a 1 hour pass. Not that anyone asked but my ranking of public libraries in Asia 1/ Taiwan 2/ HK 3/ Thailand 4/ Laos (private libraries are cute, but hot…) 4/ Vietnam (Bring your passport!) 5/ Singapore I haven’t been to a library in Japan or S Korea. I tried working from a community center in Japan but I couldn’t figure how it works.
- Onavo 14d ago
  It's not limited to their libraries. All of their public facilities are like this. Even their public swimming pools (not allowed to use them if you are a visitor, their digital ticketing system requires the local equivalent of a SSN). The official excuse is that it's tax payer subsidized. It's very much a classist country where you position in society is determined by your immigration status. Everything there is tiered based on whether you are a "citizen" (first class), permanent resident (second class), and you are in a permanent out group if you are not in the above two classes. And if you are a foreigner, whether you are a white "expat" or a Dubai -style indenture servant migrant worker. Valley tech bros are obsessed with that country but all that glitters is not gold.
  - graemep 14d ago
    [flagged]
  - ValentineC 14d ago
    > Even their public swimming pools (not allowed to use them if you are a visitor, their digital ticketing system requires the local equivalent of a SSN). The official excuse is that it's tax payer subsidized. There's a FAQ specifically addressing this [1]: > If you do not have Singpass, you may still approach our pool or gym staff to buy single-entry passes. [1] https://ask.gov.sg/activesg/questions/clztixkjr00agracq0ys53ms4 https://ask.gov.sg/activesg/questions/clztixkjr00agracq0ys53...
    - joeblubaugh 14d ago
      Good luck finding staff willing to help you IME
  - debo_ 14d ago
    This is also pretty funny considering how much of Singapore's business is related to sheltering the wealth of the rich from other nations.
    - joeblubaugh 14d ago
      A lot of those people are permanent residents.
  - deleted 14d ago
    [deleted]
  - oreally 14d ago
    > It's very much a classist country where you position in society is determined by your immigration status. Tell me, which country does not prioritize it's citizens first? Considering that at least the males of the country are forced to serve in the army in their primes, most of them unwillingly, I think you migrants got the better end of the deal.
  - jimmydef 14d ago
    Citizens are conscripted into the military. They spend two years at the prime of their youth in the army getting paid almost nothing. And after that two years is over, for the next 10 years or so, they have to go back to reservist military training for several weeks annually. They also have to pass the annual military fitness test otherwise they will have to go back to the military to do further physical training in the evenings for weeks even if they have a job. Throughout their 20s and early 30s, most of them cannot even have long hair due to this military duty. Penalty of avoidance is military prison of 3 years. When they go overseas for work or other reasons for longer period of time, they need to apply for an exit permit from the military like a leash. When they go overseas for short periods of time, they still have to notify their military unit first. People die or get injured all the time in the army during their conscription period. And then you have foreigners coming over and complaining they are not getting subsidized services when they also pay tax. Why don't you first talk about the responsibilities of these "first class" citizens before talking about their privileges.
- joeblubaugh 14d ago
  They also charge a pretty hefty membership fee if you’re not at least a PR, and charge for physical book reservations. It was pretty shocking for me after the California library system. And I’m a taxpayer. Net, I pay more taxes than a citizen with the same income.
  - orsenthil 14d ago
    Work out with a friend to share his library card?
  - danieltanfh95 14d ago
    > Net, I pay more taxes than a citizen with the same income. No you don't, most foreigners don't pay more taxes overall per lifetime.
    - elil17 14d ago
      Surely the reasonable metric is per year rather than per lifetime given that adult immigrants don't use education and childhood services.
  - radicaldreamer 14d ago
    For libraries, does it really matter who pays taxes and who doesn’t? Seems like it’s a public good that should be available regardless of ability to pay.
  - oreally 14d ago
    > And I’m a taxpayer. Net, I pay more taxes than a citizen with the same income. Imagine being so capitalist/money-pilled it entitles you to greater rights than citizens. The citizens have made sacrifices for their country so people like you could work in it at top dollar. Don't ever forget that.
  - ValentineC 13d ago
    > They also charge a pretty hefty membership fee if you’re not at least a PR It's $43.60 per year [1]. Thank you for contributing a bit more to the library's budget…? [1] https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/library-membership/types-of-membership https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/library-membership/type...
- lanfeust6 14d ago
  you might find this interesting - https://untranslatedjp.substack.com/p/japans-book-scene-is-quietly-moving https://untranslatedjp.substack.com/p/japans-book-scene-is-q... Japan's libraries allow cafes and bookstores to operate, which can increase traffic.
- dailo10 14d ago
  This has not been my experience as a foreigner. WiFi at Singapore public libraries is handled through Wireless@SG - it just requires a one time setup. https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/facilities/wifi-at-the-library https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/facilities/wifi-at-the-...
  - itake 14d ago
    How can you download an app without WiFi… I ran into this a few years ago. Maybe they improved it.
    - lmz 14d ago
      You get a local "tourist" SIM card then configure EAP-SIM. But I guess you don't need the wifi that much once you have the SIM card.
- Markoff 14d ago
  Why should library let ANYONE use the Wi-Fi? I am probabky old school when I think people go to library to rent the books and that should be the main purpose of the library, not provide some free co-working space for cheapskates. Sadly Prague libraries provide free Wi-Fi which is at least in one branch I frequent abused by loud kids playing videogames on their phones.
  - awad 13d ago
    The ultimate purpose of a library should be to help with access to knowledge and information for all. In 2026, it's not unreasonable to think that includes internet access, eBooks, perhaps even desktop computers for those who don't have their own.
analog8374 14d ago
They should be paying them to meditate. That would be the more healthful and revolutionary course. Regular daily intellectual concentration is much the same be it game, book or reddit. And it makes you crazy. You withdraw from reality.
kingstnap 14d ago
The headline makes it seem more monetary than it actually is. https://www.read.gov.sg/join-the-readsg-challenge https://www.read.gov.sg/join-the-readsg-challenge It seems like turning points into money is just a happens to exist sort of mechanic. Enough to write a headline that they are technically "paying you". The real mechanics are much more typical gamification. Like earning xp, streaks, leaderboards, limited edition goodies at events, prize draws, collective goals. The strict money payout is S$0.02 per 15 minutes at most once a day. Obviously if you were doing this it would be more for the rest of the dopamine then hoping to buy a candy bar after like 50 days.
- juiceland 14d ago
  Systems like this are not new. When I was in elementary school in the US Midwest, we had a program called accelerated reader, (AR), where you could take tests about books and get points. The longer the book, the more the points. You could redeem the points for candy. Anyway I was banned from AR in the 5th grade because I learned you could sort the book list by points awarded, so I wrote down the list of most valuable books and checked them out from the library. I convinced a 2 friends to help, one would take the test and write down the questions and then someone else would read the book to get the answers and share them. We ended up racking up like way more points than anyone else and the teachers called out and made us explain.
  - jareklupinski 14d ago
    yea a free candy bar for kids every 50 days for just reading sounds great
    - TeMPOraL 14d ago
      Most kids will correctly recognize up front it's not worth the effort.
      - tstenner 13d ago
        Sure. But getting something free for something you'd have done anyway? There's many ways to nudge people/yourself into specific behaviors even though the rewards are not worth it when thinking it through
andsoitis 14d ago
> to build daily reading habits among a phone-first population Reading is fundamental. EDIT: Other skills and habits that you can then build on reading: critical thinking, reasoning, detection and handling own biases, numeracy, financial literacy, and more. All these dimensions are manipulated via phones and the apps on them, so you need a firewall. Also: writing. Cursive writing.
- aduwah 14d ago
  You being downvoted is just sad
  - deleted 14d ago
    [deleted]
  - xethos 14d ago
    Stating a truth is not adding to the conversation though. A little sad, sure, but grandparent's comment is barely even a building block to kick off a wider conversation, let alone thoughtful or additive on its own. Maybe it doesn't deserve to be on the bottom, dead, but something this basic certainly doesn't deserve to be showered in upvotes
    - deleted 14d ago
      [deleted]
- Viliam1234 14d ago
  > Cursive writing. Is there anything useful about cursive writing? Other than it being positively correlated with many good things because education is the common topic?
  - homarp 14d ago
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202010/why-cursive-handwriting-is-good-your-brain https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202... note that at least "Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom" is critized - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1517235/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
yipinwong 14d ago
For me it's not the phone that's stopping me from reading books but my computer, on which I play games, and browse, and do private stuff. Where I live, electricity price is so ridiculous, I leave my PC off for 3 to 5 hours a day. You get bored after 5 minutes. This is the best time to open your book and read. ---- Same idea applies for the phone. Just leave it off.
- wbobeirne 14d ago
  It's difficult to turn your phone off if you have a spouse or children or other dependents who you can't drop communication with for hours at a time. But it's helpful to strip it down to the essentials so it doesn't double as an entertainment device.
  - kibwen 14d ago
    The need to be instantly reachable at a moment's notice is a modern anxiety that we successfully lived without until the mass penetration of cell phones 20 years ago. Your spouse and children will manage without being able to text you for a few hours, just like spouses and children did for the first 100,000 years of humans history.
    - andrepd 14d ago
      That's ridiculous. We have managed without electricity or antibiotics for 100,000 years too. Are you keen on reading by candlelight or dying of preventable infections? Instant messaging and calling is extremely valuable. Algorithmic social media is extremely noxious. Unfortunately, they both live on the same device.
      - kibwen 14d ago
        Comparing smartphones to antibiotics is somewhat ironic given that smartphone addiction is a disease, not a cure to one. There is no law of the universe that says that technology cannot create ills where previously there were none. I assure you that you are allowed to turn your phone off for hours, days, weeks, forever if you so choose, and your life may be better for it.
tombert 14d ago
I read a lot, and I own a lot of physical books, but I almost never actually read physical books anymore. I'm one of the happy few that used my Kindle for more than a week after getting it as a gift. I find that reading on an ereader is many times easier for me, primarily because I can make the text gigantic and I don't lose track of my place on the page nearly as often. I'm not dyslexic (I've been tested), but I do think that there's some issue with my brain where if the text is small I really can't follow it. On all my computers the text is gigantic and even then I will click and highlight text as I'm reading so don't lose place. I would love to be paid to read but I don't think I'd love to be paid to read physical books. I remember my grandmother was wholly unconvinced that my Kindle was a different thing than an iPad or a Game Boy, and that it was not "real" reading, for whatever reason.
- mulderc 14d ago
  One thing I do with my students is show them how to adjust text size and have them try out larger sizes. I think a surprisingly large number of people have never even attempted to change the text size on their devices and many can benefit from something different than the defaults.
  - tombert 14d ago
    I sort of discovered this accidentally twice. First was when I go the Kindle I realized I could make the text as big as I wanted so I would do that, as stated before. Another time is when I wanted an external monitor and I bought a big TV because it was much cheaper. Because the TV was bigger the text was also bigger, and I realized how much easier it was for me to work. I think I used to feel like there was a "coolness" factor to keeping the text small. I don't know why I thought that, but I think what's much cooler than having lots of small text is actually being able to read and understand the text on the screen. Now I have no desire to impress anyone, and I keep my text in the browser at like 200%.
    - podocarp 14d ago
      For me it's not coolness it's just context, 16:9 is too short to fit enough lines and scrolling and jumping is as annoying as tabbing in and out. This is also one problem with ereaders for me, especially for anything technical. With paper when the textbook says refer to fig 13.2 or we covered this in section 4.3 I can just flip to that page with my fingers as a bookmark, read it, and go right back. Just not as tactile on computers. Even if you did like lsp assisted jumping all over the place you quickly forget what the heck was going on and where you came in from. Of course maybe someone will come and correct me but this is just what I experience. It's still better flipping pages for technical stuff. It's like scribbling a DJ disc, imagine doing that with a mouse or keyboard. It's just… different.
DANmode 14d ago
Yes, but without Pizza Hut involved, do they even stand a chance?
lend000 14d ago
While books > articles > audiobooks > podcasts > listening to music > TV > short-form content, it's all content consumption in the end, and while that's fine, I think it's a little overhyped. I prefer to draw the distinction at creating vs doing vs consuming, and focus on balancing the time spent consuming (which is a natural part of enjoying life, but usually people consume way too much) unless it's in the service of one of the other two categories (e.g. consuming articles to learn/inspire the creation of something better or plan a trip to do something, etc.)
- grey-area 14d ago
  No, it is not all just ‘content’ which is roughly the same and can be consumed like a snack. That’s a word used by people who think thoughts, feelings and stories are just carriers for advertising and selling you things. Words matter, don’t take your word choice from ad factories instagram which popularised this term. Reading (I won’t say consuming) a good book can stay with you forever. People from 2000 years ago can speak to you in their own voice from behind the grave. And you have the audacity to call it content and compare it to cat videos and call it ‘overhyped’?
  - kccqzy 14d ago
    Reading a book from 2000 years ago is not the same class as reading a recently published modern romance fiction. The latter is basically consumed like a snack. On days when I am too lazy to be productive or be “creating” something, I sometimes take out my old Harry Potter collection and read for two straight hours. I don’t really feel that’s meaningfully different from watching online videos for two straight hours. It is indeed just consumption. And Harry Potter series is in fact one of the better ones among contemporary literature.
    - kurthr 14d ago
      Although I can't personally imagine re-reading YA lit, it still requires you to use huge amounts of grammar, vocabulary, and cultural knowledge in a seamless automatic way. To imagine an alternate world, people, and culture, while your eyes scan constantly across page after page invisible to your captured mind. Those are the same language tools you need to use to create and evaluate your own writing. You're using a mental tool at a high level, even if it's not Ulysses (or Homer's Odyssey). This is fundamentally different from passively viewing cat videos, or thirst traps, which may well not involve language at all. A 2 year old can be entertained by short form video, but can not even sound out a single word of a book.
at1as 14d ago
I feel fortunate that today's distractions didn't exist when I was younger (or I probably wouldn't read many books). Nowadays I "turn off" all the distractions that I can before bed to get a few pages in. Reading during the day is still pretty challenging if the book has dull bits (I recently finished the 3 body problem series. At it's peak, its some of the best sci-fi I've ever read. But some parts of the books were such a slog to get through. During those sections I often found myself reaching for my phone, just out of habit)
jareklupinski 14d ago
duolingo seems to have figured out how to get people to drop what they're doing to perform a task is there like a duolingo for books like a bookmark that annoys you if you havent moved it in too long
- fossilwater 13d ago
  There's also the fear of losing a streak one built for so long I'd say
qurren 14d ago
They're going to have to try a lot harder than $1 for 50 days worth of reading, in a world where any time taken off from work is a risk.
- Insanity 14d ago
  What’s the risk? Not familiar enough with Singapore to judge that.
  - qurren 14d ago
    Not Singapore specifically but in today's AI/tech world if you're not constantly working you're on the firing line. I'm in the Bay Area. It's Sunday morning and I'm working becasue I still need to pay for food, rent, and enormous medical bills and don't want to get fired, and I got yelled at by my director this morning on Slack because I'm not delivering fast enough despite squashing 12 months' worth of work into 4. I don't have time for books. Finding time for even exercise is hard.
    - Insanity 14d ago
      This sounds like mostly a USA problem and not something that extrapolates well to other countries. I had a suspicion it’d come from a US point of view lol. EDIT: while more common in the US, if you are actually regularly working weekends, look for a better job. In my part of FAANG I rarely have to work weekends, although the occasional crunch time can happen.
      - qurren 14d ago
        I've worked in Singapore before. It's not a chill work culture there either. In fact it's about the same.
    - tempaccountabcd 14d ago
      yet you have time for hn? lol.
- 14d ago
BoingBoomTschak 14d ago
Such a classic societal fail most people can't seem to recognize. The point isn't to read, it's to read because you want to, not because of a stick/carrot. RMS makes the same mistake in thinking that disallowing proprietary software in repos is better than giving the tools to avoid it and education about what is compromised in the process. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy ― John Milton, Areopagitica
debo_ 14d ago
When I was a kid, my local small-town library used to have a "reading competition" each summer. They would set up about 10 small interactive dioramas each with a different theme -- a ski hill, a dragon's cave, etc. You'd get a little paper cut-out figure that represented you on your journey through the competition. At each stage, you'd do some activity on the diorama to determine what sort of book you had to read next -- i.e. a little spinner, or a launcher that would launch your paper dude into a bunch of cups each with a different topic written on the side. You then had to find a book at the library on the topic, and the librarian would gauge whether it was appropriately "difficult" for your reading level, or whether you were trying to read something easy just to progress faster. Each time you finished a book, they'd ask you a few questions to ensure you read it, and then you could progress to the next diorama. If you completed the circuit, you got a star on the board and could restart from the beginning. Some kids would do 10 or more circuits in a single summer. I had a blast with it. I lived pretty far away so couldn't participate as much as I would have liked, but kids in walking distance would sometimes read a book every day or two just to keep going. All those librarians are gone and the library has moved on to a different location, and I never did find out who was responsible for building all those dioramas every summer.
deleted 14d ago
[deleted]
todotask2 14d ago
It’s worth S$0.02 for 15-min read.
fnordpiglet 14d ago
I’m confused by the mechanics. How do they know you’re reading unless you have a device that records you reading while you read, so is likely the device you’re reading on - encouraging people to stare at devices? I actually read on my phone and have since ~2005 and a Palm device. I don’t use e ink or paper much simply because my phone fits in every pocket and is always there. I read constantly at every moment I get a chance to. No other form factor works for that. Even in a suit it fits well in the jacket pocket.
iamheretoo 14d ago
[flagged]
- tombert 14d ago
  Not cool.
iamheretoo 14d ago
[flagged]
Razengan 14d ago
Better to just give people more free time: Reduce workweeks to 4 days. Make working from home/anywhere the norm instead of the exception. Build more third places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place Give people more safety nets including UBI so they don't feel like they constantly need to be "earning" the right to live in basic comfort.
- hdgvhicv 14d ago
  Is this singapore specially? My Singaporean colleagues spend less than 30 minute commuting (which is fine for reading, 15 mins on the metro is a great time to get into a habit), and that’s a fair amount of third spaces (mainly outdoor parks and malls so could be better). Or are you making your own countries problems onto another country?
  - Razengan 14d ago
    Talking generally It's high time civilization lets people slow the fuck down Especially with the Age of AI upon us
    - hdgvhicv 14d ago
      Certainly in professional jobs in Europe I don’t see that.
xh2012 14d ago
Extrinsic incentives undermine intrinsic motivation.
- kriro 14d ago
  Seems a bit too dogmatic. I can nudge someone into intrinsic motivation with extrinsic incentives. It's hard to discover something you're not really looking for but if some other incentive lets you discover it then bingo. Some examples from my own life: Paying someone's first climbing session -> lifelong climbers. Offering 5$ if you can beat this bot in chess -> obsessed with chess. Etc.
orsenthil 14d ago
I read books on the computer, with the help of llm that I can ask questions about the book. That's the best reading I have found working for me.
- hyper_frog 14d ago
  Is this for technical books/textbooks?
Sorrel47 14d ago
Micropayments for reading? Curious if this actually fosters intrinsic love for books, or just turns it into a chore for cash.
- mimo84 14d ago
  The article explains that the payments are very low because the experiment is designed as a behavioral nudge rather than as a side hustle. For a day of reading someone would only get 0.02SGD
Norwell_io 14d ago
My kid would totally game this system. Smart way to get reluctant readers started, though.
miles_io 14d ago
My kids would be all over this. Maybe I should start paying myself for reading documentation.
- forinti 14d ago
  I tried this with my kids, but I required them to also produce a one page essay on each book. They ignored the deal. One of them actually reads and likes reading, but he won't be bothered to write about what he has read (unless it's required for school).
ovin_dal 14d ago
Cool idea, leveraging microtransactions for literacy. Curious how they prevent abuse or just "gaming the system" without actually reading.
tim333 14d ago
>Paying People to Put Down Their Phones and Read Books Of course what people are doing when staring at there phones is also reading about 80% of the time. It's more about the quality of the reading I guess.
- basisword 14d ago
  I’d guess most people are endlessly scrolling photo/video on their phones rather than reading.
kriro 14d ago
Interesting. Singapore certainly tries many things to nudge their citizens to a better life. I also recall from a documentary I watched that they have a system where you get shopping vouchers for logging certain sports activities and similar things (I think there was also some incentive system for healthy food).
miki123211 14d ago
There's some private school in the US doing this to reward children for studying (Alpha school I think?), despite it being one of the most unpopular educational policies imaginable — down there with paddling and forced child labor, to great effect. If you have a computer system for realtime student performance tracking (replacing stressful tests with frequent auto-checked exercises, spaced repetition etc), you can gamify and incentivize the hell out of it, and to a child, $1 a day is a whole lot of money.
fedeb95 13d ago
I like reading, and I read a lot. Still, I don't think it's right that a public service encourages reading. People must be free to do what they want in their free time, and this gamification stuff smells of imposing values and habits. I'm against this idea of indoctrination of the population by a public entity, no matter which is the habit. I'm also against private companies doing this, which governments should focus on regulating instead of copying them. If reading books is valuable, just as I think it is, people will find its value by trying.
- latexr 13d ago
  > If reading books is valuable, just as I think it is, people will find its value by trying. Eating healthy and exercising are both valuable, no one disputes that, and yet we’re not all doing both those things on the regular. Even those who tried it. Books, like healthy eating, compete with massive industries who spend enormous amounts of money and resources to get you to do something else. I’m not at all advocating for forcing people to read, but let’s please not be naive that everyone will simply do what’s best for themselves on their own.
- leodavi 13d ago
  People are free to do what they want in their free time, including the freedom to decide which incentive structures they follow. Having incentives to read just... sounds like a good thing to me.
- allturtles 13d ago
  You're also against public education, I guess? Kids should just figure out what's valuable and do that without having values and habits imposed on them.
ChristmasTomer 13d ago
I actually kinda like the idea. The money is so small that I don't think anyone is really reading for the $0.02. But if it gets someone to pick up a book instead of scrolling on their phone, why not? Maybe they do it for the reward at first, then after a while it just becomes a habit. Kinda like streaks in apps. I don't really care about the streak itself, but sometimes it’s enough to make me do the thing. If the reward helps get people started, I think that’s pretty cool.

278 points by geox 14d ago

itake 14d ago

Singapore libraries are really annoying for foreigners because they don’t let you use the WiFi. Thailand at least gives you a 1 hour pass. Not that anyone asked but my ranking of public libraries in Asia 1/ Taiwan 2/ HK 3/ Thailand 4/ Laos (private libraries are cute, but hot…) 4/ Vietnam (Bring your passport!) 5/ Singapore I haven’t been to a library in Japan or S Korea. I tried working from a community center in Japan but I couldn’t figure how it works.

Onavo 14d ago
It's not limited to their libraries. All of their public facilities are like this. Even their public swimming pools (not allowed to use them if you are a visitor, their digital ticketing system requires the local equivalent of a SSN). The official excuse is that it's tax payer subsidized. It's very much a classist country where you position in society is determined by your immigration status. Everything there is tiered based on whether you are a "citizen" (first class), permanent resident (second class), and you are in a permanent out group if you are not in the above two classes. And if you are a foreigner, whether you are a white "expat" or a Dubai -style indenture servant migrant worker. Valley tech bros are obsessed with that country but all that glitters is not gold.
- graemep 14d ago
  [flagged]
- ValentineC 14d ago
  > Even their public swimming pools (not allowed to use them if you are a visitor, their digital ticketing system requires the local equivalent of a SSN). The official excuse is that it's tax payer subsidized. There's a FAQ specifically addressing this [1]: > If you do not have Singpass, you may still approach our pool or gym staff to buy single-entry passes. [1] https://ask.gov.sg/activesg/questions/clztixkjr00agracq0ys53ms4 https://ask.gov.sg/activesg/questions/clztixkjr00agracq0ys53...
  - joeblubaugh 14d ago
    Good luck finding staff willing to help you IME
- debo_ 14d ago
  This is also pretty funny considering how much of Singapore's business is related to sheltering the wealth of the rich from other nations.
  - joeblubaugh 14d ago
    A lot of those people are permanent residents.
- deleted 14d ago
  [deleted]
- oreally 14d ago
  > It's very much a classist country where you position in society is determined by your immigration status. Tell me, which country does not prioritize it's citizens first? Considering that at least the males of the country are forced to serve in the army in their primes, most of them unwillingly, I think you migrants got the better end of the deal.
- jimmydef 14d ago
  Citizens are conscripted into the military. They spend two years at the prime of their youth in the army getting paid almost nothing. And after that two years is over, for the next 10 years or so, they have to go back to reservist military training for several weeks annually. They also have to pass the annual military fitness test otherwise they will have to go back to the military to do further physical training in the evenings for weeks even if they have a job. Throughout their 20s and early 30s, most of them cannot even have long hair due to this military duty. Penalty of avoidance is military prison of 3 years. When they go overseas for work or other reasons for longer period of time, they need to apply for an exit permit from the military like a leash. When they go overseas for short periods of time, they still have to notify their military unit first. People die or get injured all the time in the army during their conscription period. And then you have foreigners coming over and complaining they are not getting subsidized services when they also pay tax. Why don't you first talk about the responsibilities of these "first class" citizens before talking about their privileges.
joeblubaugh 14d ago
They also charge a pretty hefty membership fee if you’re not at least a PR, and charge for physical book reservations. It was pretty shocking for me after the California library system. And I’m a taxpayer. Net, I pay more taxes than a citizen with the same income.
- orsenthil 14d ago
  Work out with a friend to share his library card?
- danieltanfh95 14d ago
  > Net, I pay more taxes than a citizen with the same income. No you don't, most foreigners don't pay more taxes overall per lifetime.
  - elil17 14d ago
    Surely the reasonable metric is per year rather than per lifetime given that adult immigrants don't use education and childhood services.
- radicaldreamer 14d ago
  For libraries, does it really matter who pays taxes and who doesn’t? Seems like it’s a public good that should be available regardless of ability to pay.
- oreally 14d ago
  > And I’m a taxpayer. Net, I pay more taxes than a citizen with the same income. Imagine being so capitalist/money-pilled it entitles you to greater rights than citizens. The citizens have made sacrifices for their country so people like you could work in it at top dollar. Don't ever forget that.
- ValentineC 13d ago
  > They also charge a pretty hefty membership fee if you’re not at least a PR It's $43.60 per year [1]. Thank you for contributing a bit more to the library's budget…? [1] https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/library-membership/types-of-membership https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/library-membership/type...
lanfeust6 14d ago
you might find this interesting - https://untranslatedjp.substack.com/p/japans-book-scene-is-quietly-moving https://untranslatedjp.substack.com/p/japans-book-scene-is-q... Japan's libraries allow cafes and bookstores to operate, which can increase traffic.
dailo10 14d ago
This has not been my experience as a foreigner. WiFi at Singapore public libraries is handled through Wireless@SG - it just requires a one time setup. https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/facilities/wifi-at-the-library https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/services/facilities/wifi-at-the-...
- itake 14d ago
  How can you download an app without WiFi… I ran into this a few years ago. Maybe they improved it.
  - lmz 14d ago
    You get a local "tourist" SIM card then configure EAP-SIM. But I guess you don't need the wifi that much once you have the SIM card.
Markoff 14d ago
Why should library let ANYONE use the Wi-Fi? I am probabky old school when I think people go to library to rent the books and that should be the main purpose of the library, not provide some free co-working space for cheapskates. Sadly Prague libraries provide free Wi-Fi which is at least in one branch I frequent abused by loud kids playing videogames on their phones.
- awad 13d ago
  The ultimate purpose of a library should be to help with access to knowledge and information for all. In 2026, it's not unreasonable to think that includes internet access, eBooks, perhaps even desktop computers for those who don't have their own.

analog8374 14d ago

They should be paying them to meditate. That would be the more healthful and revolutionary course. Regular daily intellectual concentration is much the same be it game, book or reddit. And it makes you crazy. You withdraw from reality.

kingstnap 14d ago

The headline makes it seem more monetary than it actually is. https://www.read.gov.sg/join-the-readsg-challenge https://www.read.gov.sg/join-the-readsg-challenge It seems like turning points into money is just a happens to exist sort of mechanic. Enough to write a headline that they are technically "paying you". The real mechanics are much more typical gamification. Like earning xp, streaks, leaderboards, limited edition goodies at events, prize draws, collective goals. The strict money payout is S$0.02 per 15 minutes at most once a day. Obviously if you were doing this it would be more for the rest of the dopamine then hoping to buy a candy bar after like 50 days.

juiceland 14d ago
Systems like this are not new. When I was in elementary school in the US Midwest, we had a program called accelerated reader, (AR), where you could take tests about books and get points. The longer the book, the more the points. You could redeem the points for candy. Anyway I was banned from AR in the 5th grade because I learned you could sort the book list by points awarded, so I wrote down the list of most valuable books and checked them out from the library. I convinced a 2 friends to help, one would take the test and write down the questions and then someone else would read the book to get the answers and share them. We ended up racking up like way more points than anyone else and the teachers called out and made us explain.
- jareklupinski 14d ago
  yea a free candy bar for kids every 50 days for just reading sounds great
  - TeMPOraL 14d ago
    Most kids will correctly recognize up front it's not worth the effort.
    - tstenner 13d ago
      Sure. But getting something free for something you'd have done anyway? There's many ways to nudge people/yourself into specific behaviors even though the rewards are not worth it when thinking it through

andsoitis 14d ago

> to build daily reading habits among a phone-first population Reading is fundamental. EDIT: Other skills and habits that you can then build on reading: critical thinking, reasoning, detection and handling own biases, numeracy, financial literacy, and more. All these dimensions are manipulated via phones and the apps on them, so you need a firewall. Also: writing. Cursive writing.

aduwah 14d ago
You being downvoted is just sad
- deleted 14d ago
  [deleted]
- xethos 14d ago
  Stating a truth is not adding to the conversation though. A little sad, sure, but grandparent's comment is barely even a building block to kick off a wider conversation, let alone thoughtful or additive on its own. Maybe it doesn't deserve to be on the bottom, dead, but something this basic certainly doesn't deserve to be showered in upvotes
  - deleted 14d ago
    [deleted]
Viliam1234 14d ago
> Cursive writing. Is there anything useful about cursive writing? Other than it being positively correlated with many good things because education is the common topic?
- homarp 14d ago
  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202010/why-cursive-handwriting-is-good-your-brain https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202... note that at least "Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom" is critized - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1517235/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....

yipinwong 14d ago

For me it's not the phone that's stopping me from reading books but my computer, on which I play games, and browse, and do private stuff. Where I live, electricity price is so ridiculous, I leave my PC off for 3 to 5 hours a day. You get bored after 5 minutes. This is the best time to open your book and read. ---- Same idea applies for the phone. Just leave it off.

wbobeirne 14d ago
It's difficult to turn your phone off if you have a spouse or children or other dependents who you can't drop communication with for hours at a time. But it's helpful to strip it down to the essentials so it doesn't double as an entertainment device.
- kibwen 14d ago
  The need to be instantly reachable at a moment's notice is a modern anxiety that we successfully lived without until the mass penetration of cell phones 20 years ago. Your spouse and children will manage without being able to text you for a few hours, just like spouses and children did for the first 100,000 years of humans history.
  - andrepd 14d ago
    That's ridiculous. We have managed without electricity or antibiotics for 100,000 years too. Are you keen on reading by candlelight or dying of preventable infections? Instant messaging and calling is extremely valuable. Algorithmic social media is extremely noxious. Unfortunately, they both live on the same device.
    - kibwen 14d ago
      Comparing smartphones to antibiotics is somewhat ironic given that smartphone addiction is a disease, not a cure to one. There is no law of the universe that says that technology cannot create ills where previously there were none. I assure you that you are allowed to turn your phone off for hours, days, weeks, forever if you so choose, and your life may be better for it.

tombert 14d ago

I read a lot, and I own a lot of physical books, but I almost never actually read physical books anymore. I'm one of the happy few that used my Kindle for more than a week after getting it as a gift. I find that reading on an ereader is many times easier for me, primarily because I can make the text gigantic and I don't lose track of my place on the page nearly as often. I'm not dyslexic (I've been tested), but I do think that there's some issue with my brain where if the text is small I really can't follow it. On all my computers the text is gigantic and even then I will click and highlight text as I'm reading so don't lose place. I would love to be paid to read but I don't think I'd love to be paid to read physical books. I remember my grandmother was wholly unconvinced that my Kindle was a different thing than an iPad or a Game Boy, and that it was not "real" reading, for whatever reason.

mulderc 14d ago
One thing I do with my students is show them how to adjust text size and have them try out larger sizes. I think a surprisingly large number of people have never even attempted to change the text size on their devices and many can benefit from something different than the defaults.
- tombert 14d ago
  I sort of discovered this accidentally twice. First was when I go the Kindle I realized I could make the text as big as I wanted so I would do that, as stated before. Another time is when I wanted an external monitor and I bought a big TV because it was much cheaper. Because the TV was bigger the text was also bigger, and I realized how much easier it was for me to work. I think I used to feel like there was a "coolness" factor to keeping the text small. I don't know why I thought that, but I think what's much cooler than having lots of small text is actually being able to read and understand the text on the screen. Now I have no desire to impress anyone, and I keep my text in the browser at like 200%.
  - podocarp 14d ago
    For me it's not coolness it's just context, 16:9 is too short to fit enough lines and scrolling and jumping is as annoying as tabbing in and out. This is also one problem with ereaders for me, especially for anything technical. With paper when the textbook says refer to fig 13.2 or we covered this in section 4.3 I can just flip to that page with my fingers as a bookmark, read it, and go right back. Just not as tactile on computers. Even if you did like lsp assisted jumping all over the place you quickly forget what the heck was going on and where you came in from. Of course maybe someone will come and correct me but this is just what I experience. It's still better flipping pages for technical stuff. It's like scribbling a DJ disc, imagine doing that with a mouse or keyboard. It's just… different.

DANmode 14d ago

Yes, but without Pizza Hut involved, do they even stand a chance?

lend000 14d ago

While books > articles > audiobooks > podcasts > listening to music > TV > short-form content, it's all content consumption in the end, and while that's fine, I think it's a little overhyped. I prefer to draw the distinction at creating vs doing vs consuming, and focus on balancing the time spent consuming (which is a natural part of enjoying life, but usually people consume way too much) unless it's in the service of one of the other two categories (e.g. consuming articles to learn/inspire the creation of something better or plan a trip to do something, etc.)

grey-area 14d ago
No, it is not all just ‘content’ which is roughly the same and can be consumed like a snack. That’s a word used by people who think thoughts, feelings and stories are just carriers for advertising and selling you things. Words matter, don’t take your word choice from ad factories instagram which popularised this term. Reading (I won’t say consuming) a good book can stay with you forever. People from 2000 years ago can speak to you in their own voice from behind the grave. And you have the audacity to call it content and compare it to cat videos and call it ‘overhyped’?
- kccqzy 14d ago
  Reading a book from 2000 years ago is not the same class as reading a recently published modern romance fiction. The latter is basically consumed like a snack. On days when I am too lazy to be productive or be “creating” something, I sometimes take out my old Harry Potter collection and read for two straight hours. I don’t really feel that’s meaningfully different from watching online videos for two straight hours. It is indeed just consumption. And Harry Potter series is in fact one of the better ones among contemporary literature.
  - kurthr 14d ago
    Although I can't personally imagine re-reading YA lit, it still requires you to use huge amounts of grammar, vocabulary, and cultural knowledge in a seamless automatic way. To imagine an alternate world, people, and culture, while your eyes scan constantly across page after page invisible to your captured mind. Those are the same language tools you need to use to create and evaluate your own writing. You're using a mental tool at a high level, even if it's not Ulysses (or Homer's Odyssey). This is fundamentally different from passively viewing cat videos, or thirst traps, which may well not involve language at all. A 2 year old can be entertained by short form video, but can not even sound out a single word of a book.

at1as 14d ago

I feel fortunate that today's distractions didn't exist when I was younger (or I probably wouldn't read many books). Nowadays I "turn off" all the distractions that I can before bed to get a few pages in. Reading during the day is still pretty challenging if the book has dull bits (I recently finished the 3 body problem series. At it's peak, its some of the best sci-fi I've ever read. But some parts of the books were such a slog to get through. During those sections I often found myself reaching for my phone, just out of habit)

jareklupinski 14d ago

duolingo seems to have figured out how to get people to drop what they're doing to perform a task is there like a duolingo for books like a bookmark that annoys you if you havent moved it in too long

fossilwater 13d ago
There's also the fear of losing a streak one built for so long I'd say

qurren 14d ago

They're going to have to try a lot harder than $1 for 50 days worth of reading, in a world where any time taken off from work is a risk.

Insanity 14d ago
What’s the risk? Not familiar enough with Singapore to judge that.
- qurren 14d ago
  Not Singapore specifically but in today's AI/tech world if you're not constantly working you're on the firing line. I'm in the Bay Area. It's Sunday morning and I'm working becasue I still need to pay for food, rent, and enormous medical bills and don't want to get fired, and I got yelled at by my director this morning on Slack because I'm not delivering fast enough despite squashing 12 months' worth of work into 4. I don't have time for books. Finding time for even exercise is hard.
  - Insanity 14d ago
    This sounds like mostly a USA problem and not something that extrapolates well to other countries. I had a suspicion it’d come from a US point of view lol. EDIT: while more common in the US, if you are actually regularly working weekends, look for a better job. In my part of FAANG I rarely have to work weekends, although the occasional crunch time can happen.
    - qurren 14d ago
      I've worked in Singapore before. It's not a chill work culture there either. In fact it's about the same.
  - tempaccountabcd 14d ago
    yet you have time for hn? lol.
14d ago

BoingBoomTschak 14d ago

Such a classic societal fail most people can't seem to recognize. The point isn't to read, it's to read because you want to, not because of a stick/carrot. RMS makes the same mistake in thinking that disallowing proprietary software in repos is better than giving the tools to avoid it and education about what is compromised in the process. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy ― John Milton, Areopagitica

debo_ 14d ago

When I was a kid, my local small-town library used to have a "reading competition" each summer. They would set up about 10 small interactive dioramas each with a different theme -- a ski hill, a dragon's cave, etc. You'd get a little paper cut-out figure that represented you on your journey through the competition. At each stage, you'd do some activity on the diorama to determine what sort of book you had to read next -- i.e. a little spinner, or a launcher that would launch your paper dude into a bunch of cups each with a different topic written on the side. You then had to find a book at the library on the topic, and the librarian would gauge whether it was appropriately "difficult" for your reading level, or whether you were trying to read something easy just to progress faster. Each time you finished a book, they'd ask you a few questions to ensure you read it, and then you could progress to the next diorama. If you completed the circuit, you got a star on the board and could restart from the beginning. Some kids would do 10 or more circuits in a single summer. I had a blast with it. I lived pretty far away so couldn't participate as much as I would have liked, but kids in walking distance would sometimes read a book every day or two just to keep going. All those librarians are gone and the library has moved on to a different location, and I never did find out who was responsible for building all those dioramas every summer.

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todotask2 14d ago

It’s worth S$0.02 for 15-min read.

fnordpiglet 14d ago

I’m confused by the mechanics. How do they know you’re reading unless you have a device that records you reading while you read, so is likely the device you’re reading on - encouraging people to stare at devices? I actually read on my phone and have since ~2005 and a Palm device. I don’t use e ink or paper much simply because my phone fits in every pocket and is always there. I read constantly at every moment I get a chance to. No other form factor works for that. Even in a suit it fits well in the jacket pocket.

iamheretoo 14d ago

[flagged]

tombert 14d ago
Not cool.

iamheretoo 14d ago

[flagged]

Razengan 14d ago

Better to just give people more free time: Reduce workweeks to 4 days. Make working from home/anywhere the norm instead of the exception. Build more third places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place Give people more safety nets including UBI so they don't feel like they constantly need to be "earning" the right to live in basic comfort.

hdgvhicv 14d ago
Is this singapore specially? My Singaporean colleagues spend less than 30 minute commuting (which is fine for reading, 15 mins on the metro is a great time to get into a habit), and that’s a fair amount of third spaces (mainly outdoor parks and malls so could be better). Or are you making your own countries problems onto another country?
- Razengan 14d ago
  Talking generally It's high time civilization lets people slow the fuck down Especially with the Age of AI upon us
  - hdgvhicv 14d ago
    Certainly in professional jobs in Europe I don’t see that.

xh2012 14d ago

Extrinsic incentives undermine intrinsic motivation.

kriro 14d ago
Seems a bit too dogmatic. I can nudge someone into intrinsic motivation with extrinsic incentives. It's hard to discover something you're not really looking for but if some other incentive lets you discover it then bingo. Some examples from my own life: Paying someone's first climbing session -> lifelong climbers. Offering 5$ if you can beat this bot in chess -> obsessed with chess. Etc.

orsenthil 14d ago

I read books on the computer, with the help of llm that I can ask questions about the book. That's the best reading I have found working for me.

hyper_frog 14d ago
Is this for technical books/textbooks?

Sorrel47 14d ago

Micropayments for reading? Curious if this actually fosters intrinsic love for books, or just turns it into a chore for cash.

mimo84 14d ago
The article explains that the payments are very low because the experiment is designed as a behavioral nudge rather than as a side hustle. For a day of reading someone would only get 0.02SGD

Norwell_io 14d ago

My kid would totally game this system. Smart way to get reluctant readers started, though.

miles_io 14d ago

My kids would be all over this. Maybe I should start paying myself for reading documentation.

forinti 14d ago
I tried this with my kids, but I required them to also produce a one page essay on each book. They ignored the deal. One of them actually reads and likes reading, but he won't be bothered to write about what he has read (unless it's required for school).

ovin_dal 14d ago

Cool idea, leveraging microtransactions for literacy. Curious how they prevent abuse or just "gaming the system" without actually reading.

tim333 14d ago

>Paying People to Put Down Their Phones and Read Books Of course what people are doing when staring at there phones is also reading about 80% of the time. It's more about the quality of the reading I guess.

basisword 14d ago
I’d guess most people are endlessly scrolling photo/video on their phones rather than reading.

kriro 14d ago

Interesting. Singapore certainly tries many things to nudge their citizens to a better life. I also recall from a documentary I watched that they have a system where you get shopping vouchers for logging certain sports activities and similar things (I think there was also some incentive system for healthy food).

miki123211 14d ago

There's some private school in the US doing this to reward children for studying (Alpha school I think?), despite it being one of the most unpopular educational policies imaginable — down there with paddling and forced child labor, to great effect. If you have a computer system for realtime student performance tracking (replacing stressful tests with frequent auto-checked exercises, spaced repetition etc), you can gamify and incentivize the hell out of it, and to a child, $1 a day is a whole lot of money.

fedeb95 13d ago

I like reading, and I read a lot. Still, I don't think it's right that a public service encourages reading. People must be free to do what they want in their free time, and this gamification stuff smells of imposing values and habits. I'm against this idea of indoctrination of the population by a public entity, no matter which is the habit. I'm also against private companies doing this, which governments should focus on regulating instead of copying them. If reading books is valuable, just as I think it is, people will find its value by trying.

latexr 13d ago
> If reading books is valuable, just as I think it is, people will find its value by trying. Eating healthy and exercising are both valuable, no one disputes that, and yet we’re not all doing both those things on the regular. Even those who tried it. Books, like healthy eating, compete with massive industries who spend enormous amounts of money and resources to get you to do something else. I’m not at all advocating for forcing people to read, but let’s please not be naive that everyone will simply do what’s best for themselves on their own.
leodavi 13d ago
People are free to do what they want in their free time, including the freedom to decide which incentive structures they follow. Having incentives to read just... sounds like a good thing to me.
allturtles 13d ago
You're also against public education, I guess? Kids should just figure out what's valuable and do that without having values and habits imposed on them.

ChristmasTomer 13d ago

I actually kinda like the idea. The money is so small that I don't think anyone is really reading for the $0.02. But if it gets someone to pick up a book instead of scrolling on their phone, why not? Maybe they do it for the reward at first, then after a while it just becomes a habit. Kinda like streaks in apps. I don't really care about the streak itself, but sometimes it’s enough to make me do the thing. If the reward helps get people started, I think that’s pretty cool.