A recent post in the Economist blog, Steal this book: The loan arranger, an argument is made that booksellers might be getting close to a customer-friendly business model for eTexts. The author throws away a point that I think is worth sharing — books (like movies and music, and not like some television) are persistent objects and not disposable.
Allowing such ersatz lending is a pretence by booksellers. They wish you to engage in two separate hallucinations. First, that their limited licence to read a work on a device or within software of their choosing is equivalent to the purchase of a physical item. Second, that the vast majority of e-books are persistent objects rather than disposable culture.
I’ve made this argument here before–some media are like newspapers. They have value in their day, and perhaps as historical artifacts, but quickly become “fishwrap.” Books and movies are media that a user can go back to, over and over again. I think this sense is how many justify paying to own something. They want it on their shelf as a reminder, and as an artifact that they might return to over time.
The larger argument in the article is perhaps up for debate. The author seems to think that cheap rental systems and in-store browsing are viable answers to things like buying used books (thanks to the first-sale rule, which is quickly disintegrating in the digital world).
I, for one, enjoy going to a used bookstore for the adventure. Digging up a good book is an activity that is driven by more than my hunt for a good deal. There’s a spirit in used books that sometimes draws you into volumes you might never have found in an Amazon search. Perhaps cheap rentals will work for blockbusters, but I’ll stick to digging for lost treasures in the dim shelves of my local bookstore.