Quote:
Originally Posted by cfrizz
...Why would you leave something you paid for in the hands of someone else? Would you walk out of a store a leave your package sitting on the counter? This is NO different. You paid for it, it belongs in your PC/reader where you have access at all times...
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I've got an entirely different practice.
As a teenager, I was (amongst other stuff) collecting comics and books.
Oh, how I did care about those.
The ones I purchased new even 10 years later still did look like new.
My nickname is "Monk" (as in Adrian, not clerics), so you can imagine my tidiness.
When moving, I eventually packaged them in huge cardboard boxes. I even put those hygroscopic (or whatever you call them) thingies in the boxes to suck up any moisture.
And, surprise, surprise: I never ever touched those boxes again in the last 14 years.
I wouldn't be surprised, if most of them would have rotted away in the meantime. Thousands of them, once a proud collection.
I've had similar experiences with lots of stuff.
Everything has its era. But at some stage you will let go, without ever looking back (much).
So I see books similar to, let's say, a vacation: They are an enormous fun. But they won't last forever. You will remember the highlights forever. But you move on.
To put it in a nutshell:
Even though I love all my gadgets, I'll never have to care about the battery dying on me. I may love it now, but I definitely will use something else in a year tops.
And same for the books: I have 500 lit-files lying around uselessly. I even had converted them years ago. And they are DRM-free. But I won't bother converting them.
Of the 500, probably only 100 are still highly interesting. And of those 100, I maybe would like to read only 10 at the moment. I easily will find hundreds of equally entertaining other books. And I can afford, re-purchasing 10 of the maybe 120 books I read per year.
And:
I put all things into context.
Some will say, even 10 books are € 100 and a lot of money.
Yes, you're right, if you look at it as a single expenditure.
But that's not how I perceive such purchases.
I buy my books mostly when on a trip.
A 3 days business trip will cost, let's say € 100 for the train, € 150 for 2 nights in the hotel and € 100 for 2 dinners, € 50 for cab fares. This comes up to about € 400 easily. Not considering clothing, suitcases, pens, batteries, my train card and whatever additional costs.
Frankly, after those 3 days I couldn't even tell, if somebody took another € 20 or even € 50 out of my wallet. So I simply don't mind € 10 for a re-purchased book once per month (10 per year in the example above).
But I do mind the time I would have to spend worrying and fumbling around.
I've raised this point in another thread and have been in the clear minority. Most members don't care about the time spent and don't consider it a burden.
Coming back to your example:
You compared to buying a package and taking it with you out of the store.
I would compare it to a dinner or an evening at the cinema. Both are way overpriced hobbies. Reading will cost € 1 per hour or even can be for free. But the restaurant will cost € 50 or more per hour. Not very efficient. But it obviously was fun, else you wouldn't have gone there. So it was worth it.
If I (in the example from above) loose the 10 books I would like to re-read now, I would have had costs of € 10.8 instead of € 10.0 for the remaining 120 books. Does this harm my fun in any way?
You might say: "You've lost your 500 original books, not just the 10. So your loss is 500 x € 10".
But:
a.) I've read many of those books before. So they're not entirely lost, I have my memories left.
b.) Whether my paper books from my youth still are in my cellar or have rotted away: What's the difference for me now? Their era is in the past.
I'm a figure driven guy.
For example, I vividly remember the costs for my last car.
Or the monthly mortgage I pay for 14 years already.
In comparison to the costs of living, the costs of having fun are almost nil. One normally can afford, to not care about efficiency or productivity for hobbies. Usually, they only will make up for maybe 5% to 25% of ones budget...
But funny enough: Most people care more about -in this example- the loss of 10 eBooks than about the costs for gas for commuting. Not to mention the costs for the car...