Looks like I last did a review/summary myself in 2011. I think I just got bored of doing these even when they are inline with my projects. I don’t have the requisite community service mentality.
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Yeah definitely feel like an asshole posting this thread especially since I drafted off the benefits of writing about books back when there were far fewer people doing it and they had way more cachet than they do today.
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In 2009 nobody ever said of a book, “this should be a thread at best”. Even the fluffiest faddish business book was given benefit of doubt of having a decent essay’s worth of content to it. Books meant something beyond just being an intellectual calling card for “thought leaders”
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I think the book as a mainstream medium is possibly dead. Now new books are of the following types:
1. Personal brand calling card
2. Scholarly specialist things
3. B2B middleware for movies/TV, incidentally also read by nerds
4. Reactionary memberberries for waldenponders
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Yep books as decor, though that’s always been the case to a degree
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Replying to @vgr
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I think all the paper-book supremacists gloating at the plateauing of ebooks are misreading what’s happened. It’s not that p-books are fighting back, it’s that blogs etc are undermining both now. The p-book resurgence is a transient domestic cozy reactionary thing. Doomed.
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I don't think this is quite true 😆
Ebook plateau partly due to weird econ stuff but also paper books = aesthetically preferable *and* resilient tech superior to ebooks in many ways
(I'm no pbook supremacist, read lots on kindle too & all for new book forms/tech!)
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I think the simpler explanation is publisher resistance to amazon's pricing dominance in ebooks. The aesthetic preference fits into my case 4 (waldenponding memberberries).
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Yeah and related to that pricing weirdness, often cheaper to buy (used books at least!)
Re: aesthetics, I'm thinking more about where it overlaps w/ actual utility. Books just feel good to hold, better to gift, etc. I think fairly pervasive even if unconscious
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Feels different from e.g. disconnect around caring about privacy mainly b/c revealed preference is that even given near-identical pricing many ppl, both extreme book nerds and normies, buy physical rather than ebook…prob for some confluence of reasons but idk for sure!
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Needs study. Young people might be wary of amazon lock-in etc. I suspect older people actually are more strongly into ebooks because you can change font size. We gave my late father-in-law our old kindle a few years ago, and he spent his last years devouring tons of books on it
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Yeah also curious to see studies, mostly going off anecdotal evidence / conjecture. My dad's a huge book guy, zero interest in kindle. My mom has one but still reads paper books more often. I love both. Font size & other accessibility affordances def a great benefit of ereaders!


