Quote:
Originally Posted by elcreative
Elfwreck - You buy books to support authors??? I buy books to read them...
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I could read nothing but free content for the rest of my life, and never run out of interesting, informative, meaningful texts to read. I mean, digitally; obviously, living with access to both UC Berkeley and the SF public library, and several of the Bay Area's diverse personal collections, I would never have to pay for paper books and could still surround myself with incredible reading content.
I spend money occasionally because I want to support the future of literature and creative writing. I sometimes choose to read books that aren't available for free because I want more authors writing books, or because I want to show appreciation for *that* author's work.
I don't need to buy any more books. Ever. Between promotional freebies, discount coupons at Smashwords, huge-and-growing fanfiction archives, online libraries & teaching sites, literature collections like the one here at MR and Gutenberg and Archive.org, and thousands of well-written fascinating news-relevant blogs, purchasing reading content is optional.
I still have ~1.5 gb of gaming books I bought during the Help Haiti charity drive that I haven't looked at.
With an effectively infinite (i.e. "more than my lifetime could encompass") selection of reading material, I can afford to make buying choices based on ideology, not just to get access. I don't *need* access to any particular book, any particular author. When I buy, it's partially in thanks to the literary tradition that let me grow up reading three-for-a-dollar books from yard sales. I can't pay those authors back; I *can* do something towards making writing a viable job.
But I've no interest in making "writing for an Agency publisher in collusion with other publishers to keep book prices high" a viable job.