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Originally Posted by Cosimo
I buy books that are in the public domain all the time.
While the content may be available at no cost, someone pays to keep Project Gutenberg and the MobileRead library available. Why should I spend someone else's resources when I have enough of my own?
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And they are there for that precise reason, so why begrudge them the opportunity to do a public service as they desire?
They aren't being charged more (as in, a few
more dollars for webhosting, which is not all
that expensive) just because you download from them.
What, random people selling things on Amazon are somehow more worthy of your dollars? You cannot just donate a few dollars to PG? (I don't know if MR has a donations thing going...)
Sorry, I don't buy that explanation.
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I also want something of good quality. The few public domain books I have sampled were very poor (these were from a retailer, not Project Gutenberg or MobileRead). Usually, there are multiple copies to choose from and I feel it to be a waste of my time to get a sample of all of them in search of something suitable when I have found a publisher I like and trust to provide me with what I want.
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You are paying for the convenience, nothing wrong with that.
Many people feel MobileRead provides great convenience, and freely.
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I've also bought multiple copies of the same book. One book I was waiting impatiently for and didn't bother to check the format when it became available. So, of course I end up with a PDF file. But why tolerate something I don't have to? The publisher's site had it in epub, so in less than a minute I had what I wanted.
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What's the therefore?
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Another time, a new author had their book for sale, but only directly from the publisher's site. I bought it, loved it thoroughly. Quite some time passed and it was available on the Kobo site, so for the ease and convenience of syncing, I bought it again.
If someone else finds my behavior to be odd, mad, or the very height of insanity, I don't particularly care.
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You may feel that service to be worth paying for. I cannot comment on that.
I do know that many people have a difference of opinion (without dismissing your opinions) and (this is the critical part that is causing some confusion in this thread) their opinions are deserving too.