The Kindle Monologues

nocureforcuriosity:

Was linked to this lj post through Neil Gaiman’s twitter. It’s a good read.

How many of these people do you think have access to an ebook reader?

I grew up so far below the poverty line that you couldn’t see it from my window, no matter how clear the day was. My bedroom was an ocean of books. Almost all of them were acquired second-hand, through used bookstores, garage sales, flea markets, and library booksales, which I viewed as being just this side of Heaven itself. There are still used book dealers in the Bay Area who remember me patiently paying off a tattered paperback a nickel at a time, because that was what I could afford. If books had required having access to a piece of technology—even a “cheap” piece of technology—I would never have been able to get them. That up-front cost would have put them out of my reach forever.

Some people have proposed a free reader program aimed at low-income families, to try to get the technology out there. Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for the secondary costs. Can you guarantee reliable internet? Can you find a way to let people afford what will always be, essentially, brand new books, rather that second- or even third-hand books, reduced in price after being worn to the point of nearly falling apart? And can you find a way to completely destroy—I mean, destroy—the resale market for those devices?

[Tags are OPs own].

I’m passing along this link without having read it. I’ve bookmarked it, but I’m currently ~2000 words into a post titled “Does a “Five Pronged attack” threaten the future of public libraries?” and as the linked to post could quite possibly contain similar material to what I’m working on - and will definitely be of a higher quality, I’ll refrain from checking it out for the moment.

(via ebookporn)