"If minimum wage goes up, the price of everything goes up."

[Ex-California]

Bezos was sabotaged by the publishing industry. In most cases, the e-book costs as much as the print version. In some case, the e-book costs more than the print version.

The only way Kindle can really take off is for the kindle version of books to come down dramatically.

Publishers do NOT want to transition to electronic books for various reasons, so they do whatever they can to keep that day in the future.


Personally, I prefer the physical book for nonfiction. For SF novels, the kindle is pretty nice. I don't need to be able to flip through it, search for something that was said in the past, etc.

Kindle updated its software so being able to flip backwards and forwards is almost as easy as a real book now. I am a ebook convert 100%. Between not having to find places to store/sell/give away books I don't need anymore, to carrying when I travel, and especially cross platform support (if I'm reading on my Kindle and decide to grab a couple chapters on my iPhone via the Kindle app my progress is synchronized) it just works better for me.

And then I can read in the dark which is nice as well

[Okeefenokee]

syncs between ebook and audible as well.

[Ex-California]

syncs between ebook and audible as well.

Damn, I didn't know that.

I haven't been sucked into Audible yet, I can see that forcing me to spend more money on the commute time I currently fill with podcasts that are free (if I don't decide to contribute)

[Speaker to Animals]

I think his idea was solid. The problem was that the publishing industry killed it by driving up the costs of e-books.

But I think the long game, at least with respect to pulp fiction, Bezos has the winning side. The kindle market basically makes the publishing industry obsolete. People can publish their own works without going through a gatekeeper. The only thing he is missing is some formal means to select from the vast ocean of utter rubbish the works worth buying.

So... becoming a gatekeeper?

Not so much a gatekeeper at all. Anybody can self-publish. Nobody stops you from doing it.

You just need reviewers who can select the best novels from the rest of it. Amazon's review system, as it stands, is useless and easily manipulated, so I am not sure how to do that.

[DBTrek]

Not so much a gatekeeper at all. Anybody can self-publish. Nobody stops you from doing it.

You just need reviewers who can select the best novels from the rest of it. Amazon's review system, as it stands, is useless and easily manipulated, so I am not sure how to do that.

Maybe when AI takes over all the jobs we can send all the free-eaters, er, I mean the deserving citizens to 'reading camps' and make them sift through the 1.3 million new titles or so and review them fairly.

[Okeefenokee]

i'm working on a book review AI

[Speaker to Animals]

i'm working on a book review AI

LOL

Good luck with that.

[Speaker to Animals]

Not so much a gatekeeper at all. Anybody can self-publish. Nobody stops you from doing it.

You just need reviewers who can select the best novels from the rest of it. Amazon's review system, as it stands, is useless and easily manipulated, so I am not sure how to do that.

Maybe when AI takes over all the jobs we can send all the free-eaters, er, I mean the deserving citizens to 'reading camps' and make them sift through the 1.3 million new titles or so and review them fairly.

There's a kernel of a short story in that. Maybe not necessarily reading novels per se, but sifting through a lot of algorithmically-generated philosophy, mathematics, etc.

It may reach the point where we can build AIs that will use evolutionary algorithms to produce knowledge, but that we won't really be able to implement a successful selection function for them, requiring humans to do that part of the process (after some MAC/FAC processing, I suppose).

[jediuser598]

As a lover of books myself, can't really beat a kindle. Had to leave stacks of books behind when I left because can't carry 100lbs of books on my back, but carried plenty in digital form. Honestly I like all three though, dead tree, e-ink, and audiobooks. Nothing like holding a real book but when I'm walking I can listen to the audio or when I need to travel light I bring the kindle.

What are you fellas reading anywho?

For me, starting The Idiot by Dostoevsky on the kindle
Listening to Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson as I walk.(The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire after that)

[Ex-California]

I've been reading the Roma Sub Rosa series by Steven Saylor. I heard enough about this on a couple Rome podcasts so I figured I'd try one out. I ended up really liking Gordianius and his family and how Saylor weaves in a detective story in with the real history during the time of the end of the Republic.

I read the last Expanse book when it came out and I'm reading the Rise and Fall of DODO by Neal Stephenson right now because Neal Stephenson is fucking awesome