Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Herley
I agree. The example in the article of the band that gives away CDs to promote its live shows is fine, but what about intellectual "product" (like ebooks) that may not generate any other revenue stream?
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So far the only ebooks' economical model that I've heard of having any kind of success (i.e. that earned a living for the author) was the one where the ebooks are free to download and considered advertising toward the sales of physical books.
Fact: whatever its medium (a number on your account on the bank computers, bills, gold coins) money will remain scarce.
On the other hand, an ebook is just a file on your computer/reader, where you can (never mind DRM) copy it at will. Hence for most people its effective value is nil - they may decide to give money to get it, but make no mistake, the main reason probably is convenience - buy it quickly from a store online instead of hunting it down on Darknet and then reformat it to whatever you need (that's the iTune model, folks).
NB: By the way, before we get down a path that we trod before. I'm not arguing morals here, just stating things as I feel they are.