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Publishers Gave Away 123 Million Books During World War Two
An anonymous reader writes Information wants to be free? During the Second World War, it actually was. Publishers took advantage of new printing technologies to sell crates of cheap, paperback books to the military for just six cents a copy, at a time when almost all the other books they printed cost more than two dollars. The army and the navy shipped them to soldiers and sailors around the world, giving away nearly 123 million books for free. Many publishers feared the program would destroy their industry, by flooding the market with free books and destroying the willingness of consumers to pay for content. Instead, it fueled a postwar publishing boom, as millions of GIs got hooked on good books, and proved willing to pay for more. It's a freemium model, more than 70 years ago.
I think servicemen in WWII were paying a large enough price
6 cents a book at current prices seems more like Amazon's discounted books business model. So it's not exactly free. Hell even brick and mortar stores conduct cut-price "sales". And at war time, reading books would have been a luxury both at home and at the battlefield. So selling them at the cost of production or at lost is more likely investing for the future loyalty of customers.
So many damn kids these days use the idiotic phrase "Oh, I don't read" whenever I try to recommend a good book.
Excuse me? Reading for pleasure is one of those things that opens up your mind to new possibilities, that is a window into a new world, that doesn't result in the brainrot of modern TV programming.
So many US Soldiers spend all their free time playing video games. (source: was in the US Army for 4 years)
Get off of work? Play video games. Weekend? Play video games and drink booze. Rinse repeat.
The majority don't take advantage of the educational benefits while in the service, don't take the initiative to research things themselves. I knew more about Field Artillery then the vast majority of my unit while being a paperpusher because I'd look things up.
Regardless of the ease of access to books, if picking up a console controller takes less effort, that's what people will gravitate towards.
Watching countless of hours of TV shows on netflix, playing Call of Duty for hours on end, there is no critical thinking. It's just accepting prepackaged crap.
Books though, they help to open the mind. I'm not saying that reading books automatically make a person a genius who succeeds at everything, but they do make you think. Any thinking is better than no thinking.
Yeah, sure. But most of the people in the military are hardly putting their lives on the line. They're working in warehouses, changing tires, sitting at a desk doing analysis.
I hate to break the news to you, but you are very ignorant.
Take your example of comparing a soldier to a guy working at Bell Tire or some Amazon shipping. Sure, not all soldiers are deployed to a combat theater, but all soldiers must be trained and capable of being deployed. This means training. Lots and lots of training, which is often quite dangerous. Have you ever seen a person fall 70 feet repelling as part of their duty at jiffy lube? How about a guy at Bell Tire get his face shredded by a weapon malfunction at a range training for combat? The guy at Amazon risks a tank not seeing him and killing him while he's working at Amazon? None of those things real or realistic
That's not to imply you should give military people sympathy, we still have an all voluntary military in the US. People going in know the risks, just like a police officer in a big city knows their risks. You should however respect that these men and women regularly risk life and limb so that they are ready to protect you from enemies at all times, even if they are not out directly engaging foreign armies/militants every day.
For every 1 hero there are 100 normal unremarkable people.
Yet another completely ignorant statement. Every military person gives up rights as a citizen for the duration of their military career. This is not optional, and there is no choice that is not criminal. If you defy the orders and regulation, you spend hard time in a penitentiary and are dishonorably discharged from the military. Go ahead and try to get a job with that on your application.
As a veteran, I speak from experience and first hand knowledge. I was not deployed to an active combat zone, but was on the ready line numerous times and saw people die from all of the examples I gave above. You don't recognize the sacrifice because you have never made the same sacrifice, and never bothered to consider what a person gives up to serve in the Military.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.