7 ms·

I refused to buy Amazon ebooks when I learned that I didn't own them. I only owned a right to read them (dependent on many legal things). The price of an ebook

I refused to buy Amazon ebooks when I learned that I didn't own them. I only owned a right to read them (dependent on many legal things). The price of an ebook has so far been the same as the price of a physical book. Considering the resale value of a book is on average about 50% of the original price, the real price of an ebook for the user with this limitation should be ~50% less than the cost of the paper book. (Not taking into account shipping costs, etc...) This became real to me when my aunt died. She had purchased thousands of dollars worth of ebooks. Had she purchased physical books, those books would have been donated or resold. At a loss to the publisher, but a gain to the original purchaser and secondary purchaser. (or estate in this case). Unless I as the purchaser am at least partially compensated for this loss of value by a price decrease, I cannot buy ebooks with a resale limitation.

otachack 6y ago
I prefer physical as well but my problem is I'm hitting a shelf limit. My plan is to donate the books I don't care about to friends or the library to open up space.
- wombat-man 6y ago
  This is exactly what I do with old books. I keep the ones I really like and give the rest to any place that accepts book donations. Might as well, I am clumsy and have busted two kindles, so I'm all aboard the physical book train now.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Consider donating them to the Internet Archive OpenLibrary if they don't have them in their catalog. It's very inexpensive to mail if you use USPS' media mail class of mail. I just sent a 13x13x16 box weighing ~10lbs to them for ~$8. https://openlibrary.org/bookdrive https://openlibrary.org/bookdrive
HenryBemis 6y ago
I bought an ebook from Amazon a few days ago. It asked me "which device do I want it delivered to", and I picked the "download please" (or something worded like that. I downloaded the epub. I could read it on Calibre, on the ReadEra app on my (Amazon-crapware-stripped) Amazon Fire HD, I emailed me to my partner's, "kindle email". It displayed everywhere nicely. I never purchased books from other locations so I got no opinion on FNAC and the likes, but I never had an issue on Amazon books.
- kkaranth 6y ago
  Interesting. I'd never purchased a Kindle book because I assumed I couldn't open it with any app of my choice(I use FBReader on Android) But it'd be real nice to be able to purchase DRM free ebooks, a la GOG for games.
  - panzagl 6y ago
    It depends on the publisher whether or not DRM is included.
    - criddell 6y ago
      Tor[1] doesn't use DRM. I think it's worth calling out publishers that aren't hostile to readers. Are there others? [1]: https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/torforge-e-books-are-now-drm-free/ https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/torforge-e-books-are-now-drm-...
      - WorldMaker 6y ago
        Baen [1] is another to mind that imprint-wide believes that DRM is a waste of time. As another poster pointed out it is interesting that it is mostly sci-fi imprints leading the vanguard of DRM free, in terms of well known commercial publishers. [1] https://www.baen.com/faq?section=drm-policy https://www.baen.com/faq?section=drm-policy
      - ryukafalz 6y ago
        Baen Books as well, regardless of where you buy them. Typically, my process is: - If the ebook is available DRM-free, buy that (this is easiest for scifi, <3 Tor/Baen) - Else, if I can find a reasonably-priced physical copy, buy that (especially from an indie bookseller) - Else, pirate the ebook
  - scruple 6y ago
    While it's not DRM free... DeDRM [0] can be run stand alone or as a plug-in to Calibre. I have it auto run when I import a new book to my collection. From there you can do what you like with it. [0]: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
The resale value of most books is nowhere near 50% of the original price. The more popular the title and the bigger the print run the less it's worth - until you get to remainder mountain title like 50 Shades of Grey, which are literally worthless, except perhaps as fuel for a wood stove. I had a library with thousands (and thousands) of books. When I moved I decided to get rid of many of them, because decluttering. Long story short - by the time you've allowed for post/carriage, listing time, packaging, and so on, you're more likely to be left with 5-10% of the nominal cover price - and that only after endless hours of work. I donated most of mine, and I still got complaints from the local recycling facility that they were worthless because they were "too obscure" (i.e. pop science, math, stats, and such.)
- mr_gibbins 6y ago
  I went through a phase where I was buying and selling job lots of books in the hope of striking gold (spoiler: you have to go through a LOT of books, and you'll make less than minimum wage). I ended up selling pallets of excess books for pulp - the paper of the books were worth more than the content.
  - megameter 6y ago
    The only books I would really consider saving are those that have survived long enough to be well out of print. It's like software in that sense - the longer it's lasted, the longer it is going to last.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  The average paperback book weights between 1 and 2 pounds and would cost 2.75 -> 3.25 in shipping for media mail in the US. In addition amazon would take 0.99. Pulling up a few random books for example https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1590509557&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/... I see I can buy it new for about $11 although I wouldn't be surprised to pay $15 in a physical store. Selling it could get me about 10 but I would have to pay about a buck to amazon and around 3 to ship it for a net of 6. This is 40% - 55% of original value. Perhaps more importantly lending or giving them in person arguably gives them the same $10 worth of value. Shipping it to someone produces $10 worth of value for 3. A book that is shared 3 times has produced $30 worth of value. A book that is shared 10 times has produced $100 worth. An ebook that you might not be able to read in 10 years is SUBSTANTIALLY less valuable than the physical book. Adding this value proposition back in and removing DRM that strip actual ownership both laudable goals in themselves are entirely at odds. Artificial scarcity is broken by design and unfixable.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
A similar argument can be made against downloadable audiobooks, but in that case, they're far cheaper than buying CDs. As an example, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Primary Phase. The CD version is £20 from Amazon, whereas on Amazon Audible it's at most £8. (I'm not counting the £18 listed price on Audible, as one can simply 'subscribe' for £8, buy the audiobook with the token, then immediately unsubscribe. I put 'at most' because their per-book price is lower with a high-volume subscription.) In this case, I'm ok with the DRM'ed non-physical version, as it's so much cheaper. It's true I can't easily gift the audiobooks or leave them in my will. It's also true that Amazon has the power to lock me out of my library, and if Audible disappears, I probably lose my library.
- gmac 6y ago
  Absolutely, and also for 'buying' movies on Amazon, Apple, Google and (especially) smaller services. The product you're buying is really: rental of unknown duration. And unless that's really substantially cheaper than actually buying it on disc, it's a terrible deal.
  - _pmf_ 6y ago
    > And unless that's really substantially cheaper than actually buying it on disc, it's a terrible deal. It's a pretty good deal when I don't have a disc player of any kind (well, CD).
    - gmac 6y ago
      Well, maybe, though an external DVD drive probably costs no more than three or four movies, and then you can make yourself non-DRM digital copies too. (As long as you don't need BluRay and HD).
      - toast0 6y ago
        BluRay ripping is possible, too, although not as simple and easy as DVD ripping.
      - 6y ago
foob4r 6y ago
For that reason, I mostly get books from not the most legal sources, and then buy a copy from a local bookstore. I either donate that book to a library or give it to a friend as a gift. I get what I want while supporting a local bookstore and the author.
nabilhat 6y ago
If it's recreational reading, most hard copy books I only consume once. It's nice to pass on a hard copy book to a friend and have the opportunity to hear what they got out of it. Ebooks don't work this way. I borrow them from a library. You're right, once an ebook is read it's just bits. They don't have the same value as hard copy books for resale, gifting, donation, or leaving out on the coffee table. Even obsolete textbooks have value, my monitor sits a few inches higher on top of a couple. Can't do that with ebooks.
skuthus 6y ago
Calibre can solve this problem for you with some 3rd party plugins
Sargos 6y ago
>I cannot buy ebooks with a resale limitation I think within 5-10 years digital media like ebooks, games, movies etc will transition to being represented by ERC-721 tokens which brings with it the benefits of physical media (permanent ownership, sharability, etc) while also being easy to store, transport, read digital items. The main benefit is that you can buy your ebook/game/movie in one store/ecosystem and even if that system goes out of business your purchase will still be valid at other stores and platforms. Like physical books, these items can be re-sold and given to anyone you like (granted you won't have access to the book anymore.)
- simonklitj 6y ago
  Any material on these tokens? Sounds cool!
  - xena 6y ago
    it's a blockchain meme, probably gonna end up being vaporware
    - mthoms 6y ago
      ERC tokens have existed for about half a decade.
      - zentiggr 6y ago
        So nowhere near the point of stability or ubiquity.
        mthoms 6y ago
        Ok, but you're moving the goalposts. The parent said it didn't exist at all.
  - Sargos 6y ago
    http://erc721.org/ http://erc721.org/ (Edit: https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-explained https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-expl... is probably better) has a nice friendly writeup. It's basically a token on Ethereum representing a unique object such as artwork, media (like above), a cool sword in a game, cards in a trading card game (Magic like games such as God's Unchained), or even physical items such as cars, houses etc. These tokens represent an individual thing that needs to be usable in the digital world (sending to others, selling/trading, using for identity management etc).
gnicholas 6y ago
> The price of an ebook has so far been the same as the price of a physical book. When I go to buy a book, the ebook price seems to be 10-25% lower than hardcover. It could just be my experience, but this has been the case for dozens of books. I look at this difference as the lack-of-salability discount.
- Macha 6y ago
  Right, but hardcover is usually 100% more than paperback, at least more. So 25% less than hardcover is 50% more than hardcover. And a lot of modern hardcovers are so poorly made (especially as I've learned in the last couple of years, when it comes to RPG rulebooks), it's not as if the paperback is less durable.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    Paperback is not available at initial release, whereas the ebook is.
AnssiH 6y ago
Personally I consider the convenience of ebooks to significantly outweigh the inability to resell or possible pricing discrepancies, so I always choose ebook (at least for text-only works). But that of course is very subjective.
jiveturkey 6y ago
I won't go so far as to say that's absurd, but you are neglecting value pricing. You aren't paying (say) 20% less than print cost and losing money over net value (which I would highly dispute your calculation). You are paying 20% less than print and gaining more value thanks the e-format. I won't buy print books anymore, because they are too cumbersome vs digital. The 20% discount vs print, or 30% increase over net value of print, by your calculation, is worth the value I receive. I exaggerate, because there are some print books I buy, specifically for the print format, because for those books so much of the value is in the packaging and physical form factor. The Apple hardware book, the Nasa Graphics Standards book, the recent Prince of Persia book, etc. For a couple, I buy both print and ebook because both formats have their own value; for the same book sometimes it's good to be able to page flip and sometimes it's good to be able to search. Brendan Gregg's BPF book is a recent one that comes to mind. But for the most part (95%+), I buy only digital, and I am happy to pay "more" than the net print value.
causehealth101 6y ago
Books are my life and my Kindle library has reached 1,200+ in 7 years of reading ebooks. I'm a bit morbid, given that I statistically have decades of reading ahead of me, but I always dreamed of transferring the collection to my bookworm niece. I only learned of this Amazon policy recently and it was crushing!

otachack 6y ago

I prefer physical as well but my problem is I'm hitting a shelf limit. My plan is to donate the books I don't care about to friends or the library to open up space.

wombat-man 6y ago
This is exactly what I do with old books. I keep the ones I really like and give the rest to any place that accepts book donations. Might as well, I am clumsy and have busted two kindles, so I'm all aboard the physical book train now.
toomuchtodo 6y ago
Consider donating them to the Internet Archive OpenLibrary if they don't have them in their catalog. It's very inexpensive to mail if you use USPS' media mail class of mail. I just sent a 13x13x16 box weighing ~10lbs to them for ~$8. https://openlibrary.org/bookdrive https://openlibrary.org/bookdrive

HenryBemis 6y ago

I bought an ebook from Amazon a few days ago. It asked me "which device do I want it delivered to", and I picked the "download please" (or something worded like that. I downloaded the epub. I could read it on Calibre, on the ReadEra app on my (Amazon-crapware-stripped) Amazon Fire HD, I emailed me to my partner's, "kindle email". It displayed everywhere nicely. I never purchased books from other locations so I got no opinion on FNAC and the likes, but I never had an issue on Amazon books.

kkaranth 6y ago
Interesting. I'd never purchased a Kindle book because I assumed I couldn't open it with any app of my choice(I use FBReader on Android) But it'd be real nice to be able to purchase DRM free ebooks, a la GOG for games.
- panzagl 6y ago
  It depends on the publisher whether or not DRM is included.
  - criddell 6y ago
    Tor[1] doesn't use DRM. I think it's worth calling out publishers that aren't hostile to readers. Are there others? [1]: https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/torforge-e-books-are-now-drm-free/ https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/torforge-e-books-are-now-drm-...
    - WorldMaker 6y ago
      Baen [1] is another to mind that imprint-wide believes that DRM is a waste of time. As another poster pointed out it is interesting that it is mostly sci-fi imprints leading the vanguard of DRM free, in terms of well known commercial publishers. [1] https://www.baen.com/faq?section=drm-policy https://www.baen.com/faq?section=drm-policy
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      Baen Books as well, regardless of where you buy them. Typically, my process is: - If the ebook is available DRM-free, buy that (this is easiest for scifi, <3 Tor/Baen) - Else, if I can find a reasonably-priced physical copy, buy that (especially from an indie bookseller) - Else, pirate the ebook
- scruple 6y ago
  While it's not DRM free... DeDRM [0] can be run stand alone or as a plug-in to Calibre. I have it auto run when I import a new book to my collection. From there you can do what you like with it. [0]: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

The resale value of most books is nowhere near 50% of the original price. The more popular the title and the bigger the print run the less it's worth - until you get to remainder mountain title like 50 Shades of Grey, which are literally worthless, except perhaps as fuel for a wood stove. I had a library with thousands (and thousands) of books. When I moved I decided to get rid of many of them, because decluttering. Long story short - by the time you've allowed for post/carriage, listing time, packaging, and so on, you're more likely to be left with 5-10% of the nominal cover price - and that only after endless hours of work. I donated most of mine, and I still got complaints from the local recycling facility that they were worthless because they were "too obscure" (i.e. pop science, math, stats, and such.)

mr_gibbins 6y ago
I went through a phase where I was buying and selling job lots of books in the hope of striking gold (spoiler: you have to go through a LOT of books, and you'll make less than minimum wage). I ended up selling pallets of excess books for pulp - the paper of the books were worth more than the content.
- megameter 6y ago
  The only books I would really consider saving are those that have survived long enough to be well out of print. It's like software in that sense - the longer it's lasted, the longer it is going to last.
michaelmrose 6y ago
The average paperback book weights between 1 and 2 pounds and would cost 2.75 -> 3.25 in shipping for media mail in the US. In addition amazon would take 0.99. Pulling up a few random books for example https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1590509557&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/... I see I can buy it new for about $11 although I wouldn't be surprised to pay $15 in a physical store. Selling it could get me about 10 but I would have to pay about a buck to amazon and around 3 to ship it for a net of 6. This is 40% - 55% of original value. Perhaps more importantly lending or giving them in person arguably gives them the same $10 worth of value. Shipping it to someone produces $10 worth of value for 3. A book that is shared 3 times has produced $30 worth of value. A book that is shared 10 times has produced $100 worth. An ebook that you might not be able to read in 10 years is SUBSTANTIALLY less valuable than the physical book. Adding this value proposition back in and removing DRM that strip actual ownership both laudable goals in themselves are entirely at odds. Artificial scarcity is broken by design and unfixable.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

A similar argument can be made against downloadable audiobooks, but in that case, they're far cheaper than buying CDs. As an example, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Primary Phase. The CD version is £20 from Amazon, whereas on Amazon Audible it's at most £8. (I'm not counting the £18 listed price on Audible, as one can simply 'subscribe' for £8, buy the audiobook with the token, then immediately unsubscribe. I put 'at most' because their per-book price is lower with a high-volume subscription.) In this case, I'm ok with the DRM'ed non-physical version, as it's so much cheaper. It's true I can't easily gift the audiobooks or leave them in my will. It's also true that Amazon has the power to lock me out of my library, and if Audible disappears, I probably lose my library.

gmac 6y ago
Absolutely, and also for 'buying' movies on Amazon, Apple, Google and (especially) smaller services. The product you're buying is really: rental of unknown duration. And unless that's really substantially cheaper than actually buying it on disc, it's a terrible deal.
- _pmf_ 6y ago
  > And unless that's really substantially cheaper than actually buying it on disc, it's a terrible deal. It's a pretty good deal when I don't have a disc player of any kind (well, CD).
  - gmac 6y ago
    Well, maybe, though an external DVD drive probably costs no more than three or four movies, and then you can make yourself non-DRM digital copies too. (As long as you don't need BluRay and HD).
    - toast0 6y ago
      BluRay ripping is possible, too, although not as simple and easy as DVD ripping.
    - 6y ago

foob4r 6y ago

For that reason, I mostly get books from not the most legal sources, and then buy a copy from a local bookstore. I either donate that book to a library or give it to a friend as a gift. I get what I want while supporting a local bookstore and the author.

nabilhat 6y ago

If it's recreational reading, most hard copy books I only consume once. It's nice to pass on a hard copy book to a friend and have the opportunity to hear what they got out of it. Ebooks don't work this way. I borrow them from a library. You're right, once an ebook is read it's just bits. They don't have the same value as hard copy books for resale, gifting, donation, or leaving out on the coffee table. Even obsolete textbooks have value, my monitor sits a few inches higher on top of a couple. Can't do that with ebooks.

skuthus 6y ago

Calibre can solve this problem for you with some 3rd party plugins

Sargos 6y ago

>I cannot buy ebooks with a resale limitation I think within 5-10 years digital media like ebooks, games, movies etc will transition to being represented by ERC-721 tokens which brings with it the benefits of physical media (permanent ownership, sharability, etc) while also being easy to store, transport, read digital items. The main benefit is that you can buy your ebook/game/movie in one store/ecosystem and even if that system goes out of business your purchase will still be valid at other stores and platforms. Like physical books, these items can be re-sold and given to anyone you like (granted you won't have access to the book anymore.)

simonklitj 6y ago
Any material on these tokens? Sounds cool!
- xena 6y ago
  it's a blockchain meme, probably gonna end up being vaporware
  - mthoms 6y ago
    ERC tokens have existed for about half a decade.
    - zentiggr 6y ago
      So nowhere near the point of stability or ubiquity.
      - mthoms 6y ago
        Ok, but you're moving the goalposts. The parent said it didn't exist at all.
- Sargos 6y ago
  http://erc721.org/ http://erc721.org/ (Edit: https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-explained https://cointelegraph.com/explained/non-fungible-tokens-expl... is probably better) has a nice friendly writeup. It's basically a token on Ethereum representing a unique object such as artwork, media (like above), a cool sword in a game, cards in a trading card game (Magic like games such as God's Unchained), or even physical items such as cars, houses etc. These tokens represent an individual thing that needs to be usable in the digital world (sending to others, selling/trading, using for identity management etc).

gnicholas 6y ago

> The price of an ebook has so far been the same as the price of a physical book. When I go to buy a book, the ebook price seems to be 10-25% lower than hardcover. It could just be my experience, but this has been the case for dozens of books. I look at this difference as the lack-of-salability discount.

Macha 6y ago
Right, but hardcover is usually 100% more than paperback, at least more. So 25% less than hardcover is 50% more than hardcover. And a lot of modern hardcovers are so poorly made (especially as I've learned in the last couple of years, when it comes to RPG rulebooks), it's not as if the paperback is less durable.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  Paperback is not available at initial release, whereas the ebook is.

AnssiH 6y ago

Personally I consider the convenience of ebooks to significantly outweigh the inability to resell or possible pricing discrepancies, so I always choose ebook (at least for text-only works). But that of course is very subjective.

jiveturkey 6y ago

I won't go so far as to say that's absurd, but you are neglecting value pricing. You aren't paying (say) 20% less than print cost and losing money over net value (which I would highly dispute your calculation). You are paying 20% less than print and gaining more value thanks the e-format. I won't buy print books anymore, because they are too cumbersome vs digital. The 20% discount vs print, or 30% increase over net value of print, by your calculation, is worth the value I receive. I exaggerate, because there are some print books I buy, specifically for the print format, because for those books so much of the value is in the packaging and physical form factor. The Apple hardware book, the Nasa Graphics Standards book, the recent Prince of Persia book, etc. For a couple, I buy both print and ebook because both formats have their own value; for the same book sometimes it's good to be able to page flip and sometimes it's good to be able to search. Brendan Gregg's BPF book is a recent one that comes to mind. But for the most part (95%+), I buy only digital, and I am happy to pay "more" than the net print value.

causehealth101 6y ago

Books are my life and my Kindle library has reached 1,200+ in 7 years of reading ebooks. I'm a bit morbid, given that I statistically have decades of reading ahead of me, but I always dreamed of transferring the collection to my bookworm niece. I only learned of this Amazon policy recently and it was crushing!