Quote:
Originally Posted by wizwor
Libraries are not free. I think you meant to say that there are so many ways to get other people to pay for content you enjoy.
We really need to appreciate that other people are paying for the 'free' things we enjoy. Sometimes they are donating their time, other times they are donating their money, most of the time, they are paying their taxes.
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Absolutely. My original post, though, was not about whether libraries are technically "free", (although a person can access content, for a temporary period, for free, to check it out) it was about my finding it odd that some authors' blog posts have equated library borrowing with piracy.
I most certainly appreciate that I can not only borrow a book for free (FSVO "free") but I don't even have to leave my home like I used to and personally request at a desk for my name to be put on the waiting list. I can do that on line. But yes, there are legal ways to enjoy content for free.
I am incredibly fussy about what type of content I want to welcome into my life as a permanent fixture, I am very hard to please when it comes to books. So being able to borrow for free from the library has helped me to narrow down who/what my favorites
actually are when it comes to allocation of entertainment budget.
In the past I have bought so much garbage based on "recommendations" that when it came to actually owning books I couldn't live without my money had already been spent, so when I started using the library it made deciding painless.