e-reader were a gamechanger for me.
on one side they are super convinient, because of the backlight alone.
on the other side: piracy
on the other side: piracy
I just want to point out that there are libraries full of physical books that you can also get for a significant amount of time and you don’t have to pay for them. And of the library doesn’t have the book you want, they can probably get it for you from another library.
(They also often offer ebooks and audiobooks, but that’s another issue.)
Unless you want to keep the book with you, one of the nice things about paper books is that you don’t have to pirate them and you can get far more obscure titles than you’d probably ever find on a pirate site.
I’m not criticizing you for pirating books, I totally get it, I’m just very pro-library.
libgen is awesome
It makes me proud that my gf used to have (I think it is busted now) a telegram bot to download books from zlibrary, as an iPhone user that was very convenient, but now she doesn’t.
My Android app works pretty fine though, so I just sent her the books there.
TIL theres an android app, awesome!
on the other side: piracy
I understand and encourage this, but I wonder, is there any “Steam” for books? In the meaning of “oh, this service is so good that actually I don’t want to bother to pirate them!”
amazon on kindle is very convienient. But I don’t want to support jeff bezozs, which is why I like piracy. Also amazon makes it really easy to pirate. You just send the pirated copy to you kindle email-adress, and amazon uploads the pirated ebook to your kindle. I have done this for about 10 years, and I like to image, that Jeff sheds a single tear each time I do this.
On the other hand there are many public libraries with a steam-like service. e.g. you pay your regular library fee (2€ iirc) and you can download all the books you want to your e-reader. The catch is, that you can only keep a certain number of digital copies at the same time for some reason. The other down side is, that the initial setup takes some time (but I guess that depends on the library? idk it was >5 years ago when I did some research in that direction).
If someone knows more about the public-library-ebook-service, please let us know.
Amazon has about 1.5 million employees.
When you buy something from them, you’re also supporting those people, as well as the stockholders, and the book’s author.
If you’re looking for the human effect of buying something from Amazon, focusing on Jeff Bezos is somewhat arbitrary.
When you buy something from them, you’re also supporting those people
I am sorry, but this take is just insane. You do not support amazon workers when you buy from amazon.
trickle down does not work. Companies like amazon will not use additional revenue to increase the conditions of their worker.
In fact, the opposite is true: the more market power amazon has, the worse it will treat its worker (and also the 3rd party sellers, and even the buyers)
Yes but if everyone stops buying from Amazon, those people lose their jobs.
This isn’t “trickle down”. This is “paychecks”. And yes it does work. That’s why those people work for Amazon.
If everyone stops buying from Amazon, those people could get jobs at any of these companies, where people buy from instead.
Amazon has replaced a lot of jobs. When amazon goes away, it in turn will get replaced by something else.
Audiobooks all the way. I’m a crafter so I like to paint, knit, crochet, cross stitch or quilt while listening. Not possible with tangible books. I’ve listened to the whole Wheel of Time series and all of Brandon Sanderson’s cosmere novels.
My wife is not only exactly the same way- big into crafting and listening to audiobooks while doing it, she also listened to the whole Wheel of Time series while crafting!
I envy you that you can listen and do the other things at the same time, tried audiobooks while doing other things and I end up rewinding a lot of times.
I tried audiobooks but I couldn’t last more than 30 minutes without my mind wondering somewhere else.
Started with physical books in the 90s now I read ebooks on my phone. Hoping to buy a dedicated ebook reader someday.
You can buy an old Kindle for like $20 from eBay. Id argue the older ones are better. They are more easily hacked/jailbroken to remove advertising.
Osmosis
Paper.
Ebooks are a tolerable alternative if there is no paper available.
I’m a fairly fast reader so audiobooks are way too slow paced for me and I don’t like when they attempt to put emotions into their readings it always comes off as too inauthentic.
But that’s just me, I’m a picky reader.
E-books and e-readers all the way! All my teenage years I was reading on a e-reader.
I broke mine couple of months ago and I will probably buy an replacement with my next paycheck.
Audio books. When I have a book in my hand, I try to reach for a screen.
When I have a screen, I waste time with games/Lemmy/Youtube/Netflix etc instead of reading books.
But I can listen to audio books when I am walking/driving/cooking etc.
I used to love physical books, but I just can’t do them anymore. It’s eBooks all the way - on my phone, namely.
I love to read so much and the ability to have my book on me at all times is irresistible. Going to the bathroom? Waiting at the doctor’s office? A few minutes break at work? Snuggling in bed at night and I don’t want to turn on a light and disturb my partner?
I’ve tried a few times to read physical books in the last few years, and having gotten addicted to the pleasure of reading whenever the hell I want, I just can’t anymore.
Audiobooks are great for long car drives, but I rarely do those, so they’re a very occasional treat for me.
I really appreciate the ability to reference terms and characters with an e-reader.
I feel like if you need that it’s either a nonfiction which should have an appendix or a bad fiction.
I am non-native English speaker and the ability to lookup words easily was very helpful for me.
i like all three. do i have to pick?
I love ereaders. I can pull them out at any time, I can take thousands of books with me at any time, I can read at night without issue, if I drop my reader in the pool it’s not such a big deal. If I drop my book case in the pool it’s all damaged and everyone is giving me weird looks for bringing a book case to the pool.
I can take thousands with me at any time
You know you have multiple books on one e-reader right?
Yes this is literally what I just wrote.
This is literally what you wrote:
I love ereaders. I can pull them out at any time, I can take thousands with me at any time
I’m not sure what it is that you’re trying to communicate and frankly I don’t really care for it.
They’re humorously interpreting your statement as you taking thousands of ereaders with you at once (rather than ebooks)
Yeah I can tell
Is that how you are supposed to read paper books?
I read exclusively through diffusion. Two years on and I’m on page 22 of the first Harry Potter book.
Paper, outdoors.
Paper for sure. For a novel, I just find an E-reader too impersonal. A paper book is much more cosy.
Also, if the book’s ending sucks, I can throw it across the room. I did that when I read Crichton’s Sphere.
I also can’t do audiobooks. My attention just drifts too much and I miss important things. I do listen to radio dramatizations though. The BBC does lots of them and many are on the Internet Archive.
I love audiodramas! Do you perchance have a curated list of them?
I do not, sorry, but the Internet Archive has a vast number.
This person put together links to a lot of the BBC drama programming, but not all, and there’s Canadian and American programming too (much less so though).
Edit: forgot the link- https://archive.org/details/folksoundomy_bbcradio
I want the physical book for the shelf but I read the ebook on my smartphone. Way more convenient for me.
