Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
No, the solution is to find a new business model & get some companies to use it successfully. [...] If it's viable in an open marketplace, all you have to do is convince a business to try it. Plenty of new startups are looking for innovative methods to get customer support.
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Yes, but how many new startups have access to the media catalogue of the giant, encumbent ones? If you have an interesting business model, but you can't provide what consumers are looking for, how can you compete?
This is why I think that leveling the ground by law is maybe the only viable short-term solution (in the long run, things will sort themselves out, but possibly not before the whole internet is damaged in the desperate attempt to stop media piracy).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Badly-formatted PDFs (or for that matter, well-formatted PDFs) are mostly unreadable on ereaders.
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Well, you could check it out on your PC and then, after the first chapter has convinced you, confirm the purchase and have it on your ereader :-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
You can't use a bad version of a product to convince people it's worth buying the good version.
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This is unsubstantiated. In my view, you can use a bad version of a product *with the same content of the good version* to demonstrate (and sell) the latter.
On another note: what is the youtube trailer of a movie if not a reduced-quality version of a movie? I suppose it works, though.
Another example. In my life I bought a lot of second-hand books, some of them in less than perfect conditions, mostly because I was exploring and it was too expensive to buy large amounts of new books. Whenever I found something that I really liked, I usually bought a new copy of it. The used one was the "bad version", then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Who's going to pay for this preview page? Who maintains the servers and the software?
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The content providers. Presumably there would be separate, but with similar interfaces, systems set up by the providers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Who gets access to the *data* of which customers access what content?
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The content providers would not know who corresponds to each account (because accounts are generated by sellers). Each media seller would know who buys what (from that seller), like it happens now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
"Not from same IP address" means "not from library computers,"...
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Yes. However, would you use your credit card data with a public computer?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
...and "multiple family members can't have different accounts."
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No. They can't have "exchange windows" open for THE SAME work within a longish time, though (say: 1 year). Not a strong limitation, I'd say. If I want to buy the same work that someone in my household has previewed (but not bought) within the year, I have to pay it upfront, without the possibility of exchange.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
if you can make a Firefox plugin that taps into a proxy server to get access as a new IP address, that's removed the difficulty.
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I think that for the vast majority of people, this is already "too difficult".How many Firefox users are annoyed by ads but don't install Adblock Plus?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
There is no such thing as streamed content.
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Of course. So if you hack around sufficiently hard, and get your timing right, and manage to cheat the system, you end up with a substandard version of the work on your hard disk. And you have saved a few dollars. Was it worth it?
Moreover, since we are considering the "online preview" scenario, who says that the preview has to be 100% complete? It could be the first half of a book/movie/record, for instance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Consumers are not currently boycotting any particular businesses en mass based on a lack of returns policies. You're trying to fix a problem most people don't believe exists.
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I'm trying to improve on what is currently available to consumers, without damaging companies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
I read fast. Most books are less than a day's reading for me, and that's at a comfortable pace. 50,000 words between lunch and dinner isn't marathon-cramming for me, it's how I spend my weekends when I don't have other plans.
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I suspect this "use case" is so rare that its weight on the definition of any new business model in bookselling is negligible. How many of us have the reading speed, free time and desire) to engage in full-immersion reading of a whole medium-length book over a single day?
Personally, I would very much like to do such a thing; however, it could only happen if my whole family was on vacation... without me. Unlikely :-)