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Your business plan for the Google Books-alike is pretty much what Google did. They scanned in-copyright books as well as public domain ones and offered to becom

Your business plan for the Google Books-alike is pretty much what Google did. They scanned in-copyright books as well as public domain ones and offered to become a storefront for them, if you recall (it didn't turn out so well, alas, I would far rather it had). Honestly, if your interest in a book is so little that you can't be bothered to even remember the title or wait three days for it to arrive from Amazon, why are you even bothering to read it? It sounds like these recommendations don't actually carry much weight. And if you do value highly a friend's recommendation, is a few bucks and a few days really such a high toll? Really, your objections don't seem add up to much if, as you say, you are actually interested in these books. There are ways to get the books cheaply and quite quickly, just not instantaneously. If you require everything to be delivered to you instantaneously and must abandon everything that cannot be, then I don't know what to tell you.

crdoconnor 13y ago
>Your business plan for the Google Books-alike is pretty much what Google did. They scanned in-copyright books as well as public domain ones and offered to become a storefront for them, if you recall (it didn't turn out so well, alas, I would far rather it had). The publishers might have responded differently if the creator wasn't Google. "Google" Books is an existential threat to them. Somebody "not google" books is less so.
derefr 13y ago
The world is not binary; there is a large space of interest between "recommendation from a friend I trust" and "no interest at all." The usual position in that space is "recommendation from an article on HN with uncertain providence." HN recommends the article; the article's author recommends the book; does this mean HN recommends the book? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The best answer is "read a bit of it to find out." If I can't do that, I'll assume no.

crdoconnor 13y ago

>Your business plan for the Google Books-alike is pretty much what Google did. They scanned in-copyright books as well as public domain ones and offered to become a storefront for them, if you recall (it didn't turn out so well, alas, I would far rather it had). The publishers might have responded differently if the creator wasn't Google. "Google" Books is an existential threat to them. Somebody "not google" books is less so.

derefr 13y ago

The world is not binary; there is a large space of interest between "recommendation from a friend I trust" and "no interest at all." The usual position in that space is "recommendation from an article on HN with uncertain providence." HN recommends the article; the article's author recommends the book; does this mean HN recommends the book? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The best answer is "read a bit of it to find out." If I can't do that, I'll assume no.