Quote:
Originally Posted by Penforhire
They're completely missing the right way to do this. They should have a download kiosk in the store, either connecting to the website or transferring the book from its own local hard drive.
I go to brick and mortar stores for instant take-it-home gratification or need. This does zero for me. It takes an extra 60 seconds or so to place the buy order on a PC from an on-line vendor you already use (e.g. Amazon) if you already have to be hooked up for a download.
I don't get the appeal of this transaction aside from gift giving and people who are uber-paranoid about their credit card info on the web (pay cash at store).
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well, i think you have a point that it's certainly not for everyone. but i do see two interesting immediate benefits :
1. for the client (say, me, for instance, since i understand not everyone feels the same way), what i like about going to my neighborhood bookshop is the friendly ambiance and the discussions with my very nice and knowledgeable bookshop owner. but i don't go there very often any more because i try not to buy any more paper books, and to be honest i miss it (i really enjoyed wandering around and discussing books two days ago when i went in to buy a book as a christmas gift for a friend). so i would *love* to be able to preserve the "bookshop experience" without weighing myself down with more paper books. and i am sure that technology will rapidly advance to the point where we won't have to wait for the second step of going home to download our purchase, because there will be a way to get the file directly in the shop.
2. for the booksellers, particularly small, independent ones, it's a really easy way to start selling ebooks, without the expense and potential hassle of setting up / managing a website (which they might not know how or want to do), and it gives them a way to stay relevant even in a context of more and more digital media.
to be honest, it reminds me of this short speculative film which personally seems like the best of all worlds to me (i found a version which has added english subtitles, so i'm posting that one, but watch out, the first minute or so is blank, the film starts after that) :