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.

Comments

Looks familiar

[fibonacci8]

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

Re:Looks familiar

[bill_mcgonigle]

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

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

If Oyster gets a good selection of tech books, keeps them updated, and has a linux viewer, then I'd sign up for $10/mo, sure, especially if I can get some childrens' books too. I own several hundred pounds of 10+-year-old tech books and nobody "can ever take them away from me". Great ... somebody please come take them away from me.

Re:Looks familiar

[artor3]

The added value that you're paying for comes from the recommendation system. I haven't tried it, since I don't have any iOS devices, but if it works well it could be worthwhile.

If you don't want to pay, there are still libraries, not to mention plenty of sites with free ebooks.

Re:Looks familiar

[MightyYar]

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.

Re:Looks familiar

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:Looks familiar

[shmlco]

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.

Re:Looks familiar

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.

Re:Looks familiar

[LihTox]

If we're talking about a lending library, then they take away your books after 3 weeks, even IF you continue to be a member.

Our public library has something very similar running already: there are a number of ebooks and audiobooks available for 7 or 21-day loans, for free. It was kind of neat this summer when I was on vacation in another country, and still able to check out a book from the library. :)

Re:Looks familiar

[Mr. Slippery]

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)

That's not really how ILL works. You have to request a specific title. (Try Worldcat to find one.) My local library was able to get me anything I asked for that was in a library collection in the U.S. -- I was doing some historical research and asked for some pretty oddball texts.

If you go in with a title and the librarians won't look it up to see if it's available for ILL, they're not doing their job: send a note to your county or city library director and your councilperson.

That said, yes, if I think I might look at a book twice, I'll often just purchase a used copy from Powell's. (Certainly not from the the evil twits at Amazon.)

Actually sounds attractive, but...

[YutakaFrog]

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.

The concept of a library

[Fuzzums]

"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!

Content?

[BenJeremy]

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.

Re:Technical selection?

[mysidia]

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.

And your children get absolutely nothing

[holophrastic]

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.