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Ars Test Drives the "Netflix For Books"

Posted by timothy on from the ten-dollars-a-month-forever dept.

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.

8 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Looks familiar by fibonacci8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's like a library, but we charge money for it.

    --
    Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
    1. Re:Looks familiar by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There aren't any free libraries - even if you're not paying for them in any way, somebody is.

      That's only true if you ignore total dollars. A library simply buys a book and can lend it out until it is completely falling apart for no additional cost. Without knowing how Oyster compensates the content providers, one cannot make such a simplistic comparison. The law certainly favors public libraries, in that they don't need to negotiate anything with any content provider.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Looks familiar by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's like a library, but we charge money for it.

      Yes, but it is also like Netflix, so it will not have any book that you are actually interested in reading.

    3. Re:Looks familiar by shmlco · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I sort of see this as a way to read a bunch of "paperbacks" that you might not want to keep anyway. If you find something really good you can always buy it elsewhere.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    4. Re:Looks familiar by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The one here is excellent, no way will I ever rent books. You're paying for that library anyway, use it.

      I don't think I've ever borrowed a book from the local libraries as an adult. They have pretty much nothing I'm interested in (too esoteric) or anything that would be useful for work (they have six books on beginning photoshop, but there are two guys in town who use git, so nothing on that). Plenty of pulp fiction and childrens' books, but even their interlibrary loan is really weak (I used to ask things like, "can you get me a book on sword metallurgy?" / "no", and eventually gave up). By time I drive there and back, many of the books on Amazon used are within a dollar of being cheaper too.

      And, yes, I do have to pay for the 'privilege' of having these libraries. Score one for the pop-culture junkies.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  2. The concept of a library by Fuzzums · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "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.
  3. Re:Technical selection? by mysidia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    The academic publishing companies and authors would never go for this.

    Unless they have a trick up their sleeves that lets them use the content without special permission or requires content providers to license in a scalable way; the $200+ shiny new edition college textbooks are not likely to wind up there.

  4. And your children get absolutely nothing by holophrastic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.