Ebook Subscription Service--$8.99 for the First Three Months; $8.99/Month Thereafter.

[GtrsRGr8]

I just ran across this. I don't remember anyone posting anything about it before. The company is 24symbols.
It has an ebook subscription service. We are more familiar with audiobook subscription services. They abound, of course. I don't remember seeing many, maybe any, ebook subscription services.

This website also offers audiobooks, some (of dubious value), for free (there are lots of "samplers," and such like), and maybe even a subscription service for the higher-quality audiobooks that they offer. I just haven't researched that far.

Anyway, I'm sure that 24symbols has a promotion of some kind on their premium ebook subscription service going on all of the time. Right now, it is $8.99 for the first three months. After the promo period, it is $8.99 per month, without any committment [sic]."

They claim, "complete catalog, unlimited downloads, no ads." According to them, their catalog has 500,000 ebooks.

I've just described their "premium" service. They have at least one other plan, even one that's free, I think (I'm sure that the offerings of it are of dubious value, like those of the free audiobooks).

One thing that I appreciate is that they do not have a proprietary device that you have to use in order to be able to read the ebooks. It looks like you can read their ebooks on just about any device and any platform.

You've probably detected some wariness on my part. Well, you've perceived things correctly. The thing that stands out as suspicious in my mind is their claim of "unlimited downloads." I don't see how the ebooks could be "for keeps," if that is so. If you can download as many ebooks as you want, there has to be a time limit on how long that you can keep them. Kind of like how the ebooks that you borrow from public libraries disappear from your computer after the loan period is over. Or something.

I'm not interested in an ebook or an audiobook subscription service, myself, right now. So, I'm just passing along the above information to you and, if anyone is interested, he or she can do some vetting of their own.

Oh, here's a webpage telling about the current premium promotion.

ADDENDUM: I signed up to get emails from them. In their reply, they offered a 30-day free trial on the ebook subscription service. Unsubscribing looks easy and straightforward.

[Purple Lady]

It isn't any ereader - this is on the page for the premium service:

*You can read on any e-reader with a modern web browser installed, or any of our apps.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

It isn't any ereader - this is on the page for the premium service:

*You can read on any e-reader with a modern web browser installed, or any of our apps.

Genuine thanks for the correction. After I made the post, I saw something that made me think that they do have a proprietary app that you have to use. The advantage seemed to be that that app could run on many different platforms.

This pertains to audiobooks, not ebooks. I bought an Nook audiobook from B&N, assuming that I could play it on my laptop or MP3 player. Nope. You have to play it on a smartphone, running iOS or Android of course. I don't even own a functional smartphone. I returned the audiobook, of course.

Life was so much simpler in the 70's, when you could just buy the 8-track tape of the album that you wanted and just pop it into your 8-track stereo. Vinyl records were also still very common, too. You could just drop one of those babies (or a whole stack, if you were so inclined, on the turntable's thingie at the top of the spindle), on the turntable and play it (or the whole stack, as the case may be). Oh, and many younger people may not realize this, but you didn't have to buy an album if you, say, only wanted one song on it. There were smaller diameter, higher speed ("45's"--45 rpm's I think they were, although one size played at 33 rpm, and it seemed like a 78 rpm came in there somewhere; the same machine could play all of them) vinyl records, that were widely sold, with a song, usually the more popular one of the two, on one side (the "A" side) and a less popular song on the "B" side. Then, there was the quantum leap to cassette tapes--still simple: buy the album that you wanted and pop it into any cassette player (preferably stereo). If you wanted to hear just one song on it, you'd fast forward the tape until you got to it.

And there were no digital books. None. Not unless they were in some experimental stage in some lab somewhere.