Thoughts from a conversation about ebooks today:
Booksellers refusing to adapt to new technology & look for ways to sell books in a format customers want, instead putting out bitterness & resentment aren't doing themselves any favours.
Change is scary when new technology disrupts established business models but shaming readers for wanting ebooks won't stop it. I just don't want to buy stuff from people who make me feel bad.
If you won't sell me a fucking ebook, plenty of people will.
@frankiesaxx I'll second that and pile on:
Amazon is amazing, stop whining. Only rich neighborhoods ever had bookstores; poor, uneducated places can't sustain them. I couldn't buy books before Amazon because I couldn't afford to get an adult to drive me that far.
By the time I was a parent, I lived in places that had bookstores and came to hate them. They stocked the kids' section with toys and distractions that kept reluctant readers from reading, so where's the experience I came to buy?
@HedgeMage I don't care for Amazon's corporate practices and I rarely buy from them BUT we also don't have a domestic Amazon; I don't know if that would change.
The thing about toys and games, I understand. Heh. I know they're higher margin than books but I also recall taking my niece into one when she was about 8 and having to be explicit and really firm that I would only pay for *books*.
@frankiesaxx Honestly, they have some corners of severe dysfunction, but no more than is probably inevitable in an organization that size. On the whole, I think they do more good than bad, especially taking into account the things that they've given isolated and disadvantaged parts of America access to for the first time. I wouldn't be willing to work there, but as a consumer I'm a fan.
@HedgeMage That's true. My mom's disabled and lives in a rural location and I do use it to buy things for her because I can do it internationally (so many online companies still won't take foreign cards or ship to a different delivery address) and I know it will go to her door.