The End of the World as We Know it?

[Scribble]

Which stretches that argument to ridiculous levels and, as such, is a flawed argument against it. How far do you take it: Without life, everything is worthless?

Keeping a debate to reasonable levels tends to lend said debate more credibility

Not really... There are a fair number of blind people in the world. Electronic media opens up a LOT of opportunity for easy access to media that prior to they would need a specialized copy of.

Just saying without your reader the digital file is worthless is kind of pointless. If you forget your book, the fact that it is physical is pretty worthless too.

At least with electronic media, if I forget my reader, 9 times out of 10 there is another device on me or near me that can do the task.

 

[Scribble]

Now consider how much is removed, from that equation, by an online direct-marketing model. Believe me; I understand the costs involved

Point me to a source, and I'll be open to your view- but for now, all I've seen is sources indicating it's not that big of a savings (certainly not as large as most people posting on enworld seem to believe.)

 

[Ryujin]

Point me to a source, and I'll be open to your view- but for now, all I've seen is sources indicating it's not that big of a savings (certainly not as large as most people posting on enworld seem to believe.)

I don't need to. I'm pointing to your source and asking you to mentally remove the additional costs, that aren't required for a digital distribution model.

 

[Scribble]

I don't need to. I'm pointing to your source and asking you to mentally remove the additional costs, that aren't required for a digital distribution model.

So I will go with 15%

 

[Ryujin]

Not really... There are a fair number of blind people in the world. Electronic media opens up a LOT of opportunity for easy access to media that prior to they would need a specialized copy of.

Just saying without your reader the digital file is worthless is kind of pointless. If you forget your book, the fact that it is physical is pretty worthless too.

At least with electronic media, if I forget my reader, 9 times out of 10 there is another device on me or near me that can do the task.

Or not, if your electronic media happens to be loaded onto that one device. If it's online, then you still need a confluence of two things in order to access it.

And as to the blind, specifically, I've set blind people up with computers, scanners, OCR software, and vocalizing software, but a Braille book still has fewer points of failure. Stretching and stating corner cases also doesn't serve your side of the debate, very well.

 

[Ryujin]

So I will go with 15%

Now add shipping and warehousing, stocking, etc..

 

[Scribble]

Or not, if your electronic media happens to be loaded onto that one device. If it's online, then you still need a confluence of two things in order to access it.

Most electronic media exists in multiple places at once.

Say, Kindle books or Barnes and noble. If I don't have a kindle on me, you can easily access your book from a phone, an ipad a computer...

The larger point being if I forget my device there are more ways for me to access the media then if I forget my book.

There are advantages and disadvantages to all media forms- I see the advantages of digital media starting to outweigh the advantages of physical media.

And as to the blind, specifically, I've set blind people up with computers, scanners, OCR software, and vocalizing software, but a Braille book still has fewer points of failure. Stretching and stating corner cases also doesn't serve your side of the debate, very well.

Sure- again everything has disadvantages, but the fact that you can more easily set up ways for them to access the media is a large advantage.

 

[Scribble]

Now add shipping and warehousing, stocking, etc..

Again I will say give me a source that says the numbers.

I have seen a number of credible sources that say otherwise- that there isn't a huge savings between the two forms of media.

You are a guy on the internet that keeps basically saying trust me I know stuff.


P.S. Also from Wired, but in April of 2009:

"For publishers, the majority of a book’s costs is not in the printing or shipping, says Savikas. It’s in sales, marketing, product development and editorial. "Its more about the fixed costs," he says."

 

[Dannager]

Which stretches that argument to ridiculous levels and, as such, is a flawed argument against it. How far do you take it: Without life, everything is worthless?

Keeping a debate to reasonable levels tends to lend said debate more credibility

That's sort of my point.

You're making a philosophic argument (physical goods have intrinsic value, digital goods do not), which is a silly argument (first, because it assumes that an item's intrinsic value is relevant or even important, and second because digital goods arguably do have intrinsic worth), and which you are arguing by saying that a digital good's value is easily dismissed because it requires another thing to be used. I countered by arguing that even physical books require another thing to be used. And if you don't find the "working eyes" argument compelling because you don't know many blind people, how many people do you know who use glasses to read?

Would you just as easily dismiss the worth of a physical book if you needed glasses in order to get any use out of it?

 

[Zaran]

Again, dropdown boxes at the top allow you to filter for individual categories.

Let's face it: the interface they have in place is actually pretty solid, and complaining that you have to click two times instead of one to actually download a PDF is about as incredibly mild as a complaint can possibly get.

I am also very confused by why you would want it to track what you've already downloaded, or what you mean by tracking your last login.

That way they know where to start again. If I don't remember the last time I logged on I would have to guess what I downloaded and what I haven't. If it had a time stamp I could at least know that anything posted after that date was not downloaded.

I'm assuming that what he was referring to. I think the biggest issue is the fact that IF I wanted to download a whole month of magazines I would have to download ~12 different pdfs. That's alot of time wasted when they could have been compiled to one. And sure, maybe most of do not want the whole magazine, but at least some people do. And you know, if the article quality was better, more people would want the whole thing instead cherry picking one or two articles a month.