MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - The subscription model for ebooks hasn’t emerged yet, but it will

anamardoll · 05-17-2011, 04:18 PM

I'm not sure if I would subscribe to a rental service or not.*

*Caveat: I pay the yearly pittance to rent books from the Free Library of Philadelphia, so I guess I DO know if I'd subscribe to a pay-to-read service, but I don't know that I'd buy ANOTHER one, and certainly don't know if I'd pay more than $50 a year.

On the one hand, I like the idea of the model. I'm trying to get AWAY from the "collector" mentality where all books MUST be owned forever and ever amen. There's nothing wrong with that mentality, of course, but I don't want to be that way anymore for personal reasons.

On the other hand, I'm deeply worried by how easy it is to make an ebook unavailable. This has come up with things like the Scott Pilgrim volumes that I'd like to read: apparently they were ebooks for a very short time and then they were pulled from the market for various reasons. That distresses me. If I'd bought them at the time, then I'd still have them regardless of their current market availability; if I'd rented them, I would never be able to rent them (in ebook form) again once they were (permanently) pulled.

pbooks can go out of print, of course, but there's always SOMEONE willing to sell their copy for the right price. With ebooks, the day it's pulled from the market is the last chance you ever had to obtain the book legally. That really, really distresses me.

A "rental" subscription service where I have to worry that everything I enjoy must then be bought in order to "lock in" its future availability is somewhat scary. Once in that mind set, it makes more sense to just pay a little extra to buy what you want to read rather than renting the read.

Of course, as I said, I do already pay for a rental service, but the FLoP is so cheap I don't even count it. I doubt anyone could make substantial money with THAT model.

A subscription purchasing group might be nice - I do belong to Audible even though I hate their Special Snowflake formatting - but I'm not sure they could price competitively enough to draw my interest. A lump sum for X credits (like the Audible model) would work GREAT for me, but not so very much for the publishers when I was probably already gonna buy those 24, or 48, or 256 books anyway.

05-17-2011, 04:18 PM	#48
anamardoll Chasing Butterflies Posts: 3,132 Karma: 5074169 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: American Southwest Device: Uses batteries.	I'm not sure if I would subscribe to a rental service or not.* *Caveat: I pay the yearly pittance to rent books from the Free Library of Philadelphia, so I guess I DO know if I'd subscribe to a pay-to-read service, but I don't know that I'd buy ANOTHER one, and certainly don't know if I'd pay more than $50 a year. On the one hand, I like the idea of the model. I'm trying to get AWAY from the "collector" mentality where all books MUST be owned forever and ever amen. There's nothing wrong with that mentality, of course, but I don't want to be that way anymore for personal reasons. On the other hand, I'm deeply worried by how easy it is to make an ebook unavailable. This has come up with things like the Scott Pilgrim volumes that I'd like to read: apparently they were ebooks for a very short time and then they were pulled from the market for various reasons. That distresses me. If I'd bought them at the time, then I'd still have them regardless of their current market availability; if I'd rented them, I would never be able to rent them (in ebook form) again once they were (permanently) pulled. pbooks can go out of print, of course, but there's always SOMEONE willing to sell their copy for the right price. With ebooks, the day it's pulled from the market is the last chance you ever had to obtain the book legally. That really, really distresses me. A "rental" subscription service where I have to worry that everything I enjoy must then be bought in order to "lock in" its future availability is somewhat scary. Once in that mind set, it makes more sense to just pay a little extra to buy what you want to read rather than renting the read. Of course, as I said, I do already pay for a rental service, but the FLoP is so cheap I don't even count it. I doubt anyone could make substantial money with THAT model. A subscription purchasing group might be nice - I do belong to Audible even though I hate their Special Snowflake formatting - but I'm not sure they could price competitively enough to draw my interest. A lump sum for X credits (like the Audible model) would work GREAT for me, but not so very much for the publishers when I was probably already gonna buy those 24, or 48, or 256 books anyway.