Quote:
Originally Posted by mogui
I agree. Sadly, this suggests that either 1/ eBook Readers will fail, or 2/ They will be made and sold by companies that have no interest in selling eBooks. I can envision a Palm device with a larger screen that will be an excellent reader and convergence device as well. There is enough written content around to keep me reading for the rest of my life, should I be willing to get it off of a p2p network. The consequences are dire for writers unless we can discover another business model. Two have been suggested here. One is DRM under author control, and another is advertising subsidy. Are there other ideas? Is there a better place than MR to discover them?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to assume that once a book is in electronic form, people won't actually
pay for it. those who do pay for it will promptly share it with everyone else, stripping out DRM if needed, and ultimately, there isn't really a
paying market for ebooks large enough to support writers.
I don't think the paying market for ebooks is large enough now to support writers solely on electronic editions. But I reject the assumption that most folks out there are dishonest and won't pay for what they read.
Sure, you'll get folks who will try to rip off the writers by unauthorized copy and sharing to avoid actually
paying for the content. How much of this will happen is impossible to measure. But I think that majority of the market
will pay for ebooks. Price properly, and give people the feeling that they are getting actual value for their money, and it shouldn't be a problem.
When I hear people making noises like "They're all a bunch of dirty so-and-sos, who will rip you off if they get a chance!", my response tends to be "Why do you make that assumption? Because it's what you would do, and you assume eveyone else is just like
you?"
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Dennis