Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
And for those places, people will read books that they have downloaded, just like they watch Netflix streaming at home and watch movies they've downloaded on their laptops on airplanes. It will be another option , just like streaming and downloading movies are options. I agree with you that it will never be the ONLY option.
|
The way I took it as, from the article, would be that things are going to eventually be entirely cloud based, so entirely streamed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
You could make the exact argument about movies-yet somehow, there is a flourishing movie rental/streaming market. Pricing will be key, as well as which books may be in the subscription pool. That will be worked out over time, the way it was for movies.
|
Difference is consuption rate. We're in a group of extremely higher than average readers, and people here are trying to read 2 books a week. The average consumer doesn't even do 2 a year. Unless the rates are low enough, to where they verge on unprofitable, subscription book sales isn't going to take off well since they need to target the population at large. It works with movies, because people commonly watch movies, so they'll pay a subscription because they expect to make use of it. Magazine subscriptions work, because they break things down to bite sized chunks that people are willing to read without much effort, and even that industry is having issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
Or not. I grew up with all kinds of ads in comic books and there are ads in magazines to this day. There were ads in paperbacks , too. Free, ad-supported games in which you pay to remove the ads are commonplace and widely accepted.
How the ads will be implemented is an issue. There are people who will never accept ads, no matter how they are implemented, but that's the minority. I discuss this HERE. |
The difference is, Magazines and the like are more structured to allow for ads, since they have breaks in the flow. Pop in an ad between articles. You could argue putting them in between chapters, but people would balk at that because it removes them even more from the immersion (which for many people, immersion is more difficult with reading than it is with more visual forms, such as tv, movies, and comics).
Also, people complain when things they're used to having be ad free now has ads. Even if they have ads normally, if people are paying a premium, they expect an ad free environment (look at how many people complain about ads on Hulu Plus).