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to choose from an effectively unlimited selection is something that ultimately benefits literary culture Prove it.

williamcotton 12y ago
Well, there you have it. A quantum of "downvote" passes for an intellectual response. All I'm trying to point out is that a rather broad statement about literary culture was made with no attempt at justification. Perhaps one of the problems with HackerNews is the reliance on quantified measurements to score a discussion? It's almost like the article in question was bringing up issues related to this kind of philosophy...
GabrielF00 12y ago
One of the biggest complaints that I hear from literary figures is that people are not reading. E.g. Philip Roth saying that the number of serious readers in America is going to drop to almost zero. So I would imagine that readers being able to find whatever book they want wherever they are located and buy it instantly would remove some of the barriers to reading. I would also imagine that having cheaper books would encourage people to buy more. And I think that all of the other new ways of getting books to people (Audible for example) are also vehicles to get people reading. I also think that ebooks open up a lot of possibilities for experimentation. For instance, in the past it may not have made a lot of financial sense to write a 60 page novella - you couldn't really put it on a shelf in a bookstore by itself, it would have to be packaged with other work. But with an ebook there's no reason you can't write a 60 page novella and charge $3 for it. I think a good analogy is print journalism and commentary vs web journalism and commentary. There's a lot more crap on the web, and a lot of the traditional institutions are hurting, but there are also so many more opportunities for new voices and for innovation.
- williamcotton 12y ago
  There's a lot of unquantifiable knowledge and experience contained within these traditional institutions that are being ignorantly cast aside. You can't just think about the consumption side of things. You have to think about the production side.

Well, there you have it. A quantum of "downvote" passes for an intellectual response. All I'm trying to point out is that a rather broad statement about literary culture was made with no attempt at justification. Perhaps one of the problems with HackerNews is the reliance on quantified measurements to score a discussion? It's almost like the article in question was bringing up issues related to this kind of philosophy...

GabrielF00 12y ago

One of the biggest complaints that I hear from literary figures is that people are not reading. E.g. Philip Roth saying that the number of serious readers in America is going to drop to almost zero. So I would imagine that readers being able to find whatever book they want wherever they are located and buy it instantly would remove some of the barriers to reading. I would also imagine that having cheaper books would encourage people to buy more. And I think that all of the other new ways of getting books to people (Audible for example) are also vehicles to get people reading. I also think that ebooks open up a lot of possibilities for experimentation. For instance, in the past it may not have made a lot of financial sense to write a 60 page novella - you couldn't really put it on a shelf in a bookstore by itself, it would have to be packaged with other work. But with an ebook there's no reason you can't write a 60 page novella and charge $3 for it. I think a good analogy is print journalism and commentary vs web journalism and commentary. There's a lot more crap on the web, and a lot of the traditional institutions are hurting, but there are also so many more opportunities for new voices and for innovation.

williamcotton 12y ago
There's a lot of unquantifiable knowledge and experience contained within these traditional institutions that are being ignorantly cast aside. You can't just think about the consumption side of things. You have to think about the production side.