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Originally Posted by jehane
I find it odd that you consider an ebook/pbook comparison invalid, but an ebook/car comparison perfectly valid. Especially when they are used in completely different ways, and I don't mean reading vs driving.
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I don't find an eBook versus pBook comparison invalid. What I find invalid is taking the weaknesses of paper and trying to somehow reproduce them on eBooks (such as the 26-circ cap).
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Books are also less commodified than rental cars. An individual is unlikely to go to the car rental place and specify exactly which make and model they want (unless it's high end of course), rather, they select a type, eg medium-sized, and the car rental place will give you what *they* choose. However with books, it's unlikely that an individual will go to a library and say they want something from genre X, and leave it up to the librarian to choose something for them.
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I am not sure I follow. How is this relevant?
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If you want to compare business models, then consider the considerable "wastage" of having books idling on shelves, even electronic ones. In the transport industry (to which car rental companies belong), such idling indicates vast overstocking and the solution would be to massively cull the excess. I am guessing you would not be supportive of such an action by libraries?
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Uhh? I don't understand the relevance.
I made the analogy to point out that it's not reasonable why wholesale merchants (like libraries) should pay a premium merely based on the assumption that an eBook is lent out and thus read by more than one person.