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Ars Test Drives the "Netflix For Books"
Ars Technica reviewer Casey Johnston gives a mildly positive review to the Oyster book-rental app (and associated site), which intentionally tries to be for books what Netflix has become for movies: a low-price, subscription-based, data-sifting source of first resort. For $10 a month, users can read any of the books in Oyster's catalog (in the range of 100,000, and growing), and their reading habits are used to suggest new books of interest (with some bum steers, it seems, at present). It's iOS-only for now, with an Android version expected soon. I've only grudgingly moved more and more of my reading to tablets, but now am glad I have; still, I don't like the idea of having my books disappear if I don't pay a continuing subscription.
It's like a library, but we charge money for it.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
rental e-books that don't support e-readers. what
I could see this taking off around college campuses if they offered the service for technical books. If they offered math, science, engineering ect... they could have every student on campus paying ten dollars a month for a year. They'd also have my business as well. Sometimes certain books don't cut it and maybe one book covers a subject better than another, having to option to work in both without spending 200$ is attractive; even if I don't get to keep them at the end of the day.
Eat sleep die
I don't get how they could just completely ignore such a large community. I imagine it wouldn't need too much (if any) real tweaking per device. They don't even bother addressing the lack of support.
I actually think I would enjoy something like this, as I'm really enjoying using Kindle on Android lately. But not to the tune of $10 / month. The thing is for the $15 / mo you pay for Netflix, you could buy one movie. You watch one movie during that month that you otherwise would have bought, and you break even. It takes you one evening, and you still have 29 more days in the month to get more than your money's worth out of it. For the $10 they want per month for this service, you can buy one paperback book. But I know very few people who read more than one book per month right now. Maybe that's just because me and a lot of the people I know are all obsessed with the huge fantasty epics for now... (*cough*BrandonSanderson*cough) But personally, I really don't think I'd sign up for more than $2 or $3 per month. Good luck to them though.
"still, I don't like the idea of having my books disappear if I don't pay a continuing subscription."
They're not your books. You can read them as long as you pay your subscription. That's how a library works.
You not like, you not borrow book, you buy book.
Next!
Privacy is terrorism.
A library.
Except a library is free and doesn't install malware (also known as DRM) on my computer.
So what's the attraction again?
Ars Test Drives the "Netflix For Books"
Using a word that could be a noun or a verb - worse still, using two of them in succession - doesn't make for an easy-to-read headline. Especially if you initially fuck it up and write:
Ars Tests Drives the "Netflix For Books"
Just "tests" (or a hyphenated "test-drives" if you must) would have been a lot easier on the brain.
It's made worse by Ars being a contraction that looks like a typo.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
They make it sound like they offer the dream of an endless library, read any book you want, any time you want, anywhere you want for $10/mo. That does sound kind of dreamy. But they have only 100,000 books which sounds like a lot but will likely contain very few you are interested in. They only have iOS now and even there show only phone and not tablet. Android coming later. But what about eInk readers which many prefer or other devices in the future? What format are the books? I would accept only DRM-free ePub, or PDF for tech books. When they go out of business you are left with nothing. Is there a limit to how many books you have at a time? Can you opt out of them tracking your reading? I can understand how difficult it would be to get all publishers to agree to my dream. Their dream, of course, would be to implement a locked down rental system where you give them money and own nothing and there is no guaranteed future access. I'll hold on to my money until I get what I want.
A little OT but what's happening with 1st editions of collectibles. I once had close to 3K volumes and collected 1st editions, mostly early 20th c. authors. With ebooks are hardcopy 1st editions becoming a better investment? I miss having a room walled by books. It has a special ambiance.
Their website is about useless. How about some way I can peruse Oyster's current content offerings?
I'm a sci-fi fan, and that's what I read... if you aren't offering books in my genre, why would I want to spend money on your service, and if I have no way of knowing that you offer any books in my genre, I'm not gambling just to be disappointed by your selection.
On second thought, their web site actually makes me a bit angry. Probably because of its seemingly hipsterish pretentiousness.
It's a pity this is not available outside the United States... I hope it will come to Europe soon. Their FAQ states: "When will you expand beyond the United States? Book rights are regional and right now we are focused on building a best-in-class offering for the U.S. market. We don’t have a timetable for international expansion, but we are committed to growing Oyster and making it universally accessible over time."
It reminded me of Safari Books, a subscription service for technical books. It was started by O'Reilly, but now contains books by a lot of other publishers like Addison Wesley and Manning. But subscription fees are considerably higher than for this new Oyster service. E.g. for an individual subscription with max. 10 books at a time in your library, you pay $28 / month or $299 / year. Obviously the value of such a service is strongly related with the content they offer. I couldn't find an overview of books Oyster offers, it would e.g. be nice to know if they have a good selection of technical books.
I've only grudgingly moved more and more of my reading to tablets, but now am glad I have; still, I don't like the idea of having my books disappear if I don't pay a continuing subscription.
I see this as a big benefit for people that like to read for entertainment. You aren't paying for the actual books, just access to them. For light reading (entertainment purposes) this seems like a great deal.
I'll always buy technical books I want to refer to in hard copy when I can, but I don't need a persistent copy of most of the things I read.
More money to be had maybe?
From your article "iOS users tracking their expenses on Toshl spent an average of $3,297 every month, 19 percent more than those on Android, who spent $2,761. There's a similar disparity in terms of income."
On Average it might be true that Apple users have 20% more expenses, but then there are six times more Android users. It is also very likely that the top sixth of Android users have more expenses than Apple, Android unlike Apple has phones at all ranges of the market, something Apple is looking to change with Apple 5c
We call it "a library".
Loans out ebooks free to anyone with a library card.
-Styopa
So, have you ever inherited anything? Do you have a book that your grandfather used to read? A record player? A record collection? One record? What about a video tape? A car? A tvision? A set of speaker?
So if you rent your furniture, and your home, and lease your car, and your tvision doesn't last more than 5 years, and your speakers aren't worth more than a few dollars, then what exactly do you give to your children? What gets handed down?
I know, just the words: "I've got nothing, you're on your own from scratch."
Enjoy. But I like to have things that represent me; taken as a set, no one else would ever have them. And most items, aren't owned by more than a handful of people.
But if the only things you use are things that millions of others use too -- iphones, the most popular books, only the most popular movies -- then congrats, you stand out like a chinese person with a chinese phone in china. Hello kitty.
And by the way, that library of over 100'000 books...how many of them are public domain anyway? Oh yeah. Project Gutenberg. Oh yeah. Been reading on a computer for decades. Oh yeah. Just a cash grab. Oh yeah.
I think it makes sense.
Yes, you already pay for a local library but the books I want to read are often not in the catalog, or when they are popular they are difficult to get. If you would read for more than $10 books per month and you are not the type who prefers to keep books, then it is sensible.
about:
>> still, I don't like the idea of having my books disappear if I don't pay a continuing subscription.
Well it is like a normal library, when you give the books back, you don't have them anymore. If you want to keep books, just buy them in whatever appearance state that you prefer..
People, myself included, will not buy into this model completely until we have assurances we have purchased a 'personal copy-right' that gives us the ability to access those books we have paid for at least for our lifetime in perpetuity.
The reality is people will continue to read more and more books, and will pay more for the privildge. But if that priviledge is 're-voked' at the end of a subscription the 'perception' is that its as ephemeral as your memory and people just won't put up with that.
The reassurance doesn't cost the publishers anything, but their perception of the 're-sale' rights will be ridiculously over priced..
Its sort of like the 'Pride' people have in musical performance and the confidence they will forget them over time.
In reality People move on to new material.
And that is the 'Brand' loyalty they should be concerned about.
If people can refer back to their personal catalog.. they won't have to be convinced to buy again, or buy more from the same maker or vendor.
The obviousness of the 'first position advantage' of a publisher or maker in our mental bookshelf should be obvious.. "It sells more product" than the unknown or unremembered.
But publishers performers and vendors are too short sighted.. or to near sighted to see the obvious.
Hey everyone! I have an idea. Hear me out, this might be a little radical. Let's establish a public organization that keeps archives of books, magazines, and multi-media. Then, here's the kicker, we ask people to join the organization at no charge! Then, each town/county will have what I call a "branch", which is a local building to house material. If a "branch" doesn't have the material required, members can request the material from another "branch".
Members can borrow materials for a couple of weeks, then return it. All for free! Well, behind the scenes, the organization is funded largely by taxes, but those would be sop small, people will never notice them.
As technology moves forward, "branches" can loan out e-books, also for free! And, maybe we can install public computer stations at these "branches" too.
"my books"
They aren't your books to begin with.
It's no different than movies/shows you watch on Netflix not "being yours". or ones you rent from Redbox...
you only "own" them when you buy them.
OP is a tard
It really should be: Unlimited looks at our limited stock of books. And it's an iPhone app, no less; presently by invitation only (oooohhh, they'll let me be special). So if you have an unlimited data connection of at least $100.00 every 30 days (more, when the real price is requested because it was unmentioned ...well...because they have itemized labels such as tax or fee) you'll be that guy by the lake reading his iPhone. Yeah, right, that location isn't internet reality and makes me laugh out loud at the marketing and sales weasels and their great cash flow idea.
as a company that doesn't advertise it's wares (or prices, for other places) without a login. Show me what you have.
I might be interested when they have universal platform coverage.
still, I don't like the idea of having my books disappear if I don't pay a continuing subscription.
Sort of how the netflix streaming library goes poof if you stop paying a subscription? I could see your ambivalence if you paid for a book on your kindle only to see it go away if you stopped subscribing to amazon prime, but this isn't the case.
Where's my sock? There it is...