I think you're seriously undervaluing what libraries as an institution provide both as one of the few public spaces where people can just be, without having to spend money to justify their presence, alongside being a resource to access knowledge, with people trained in the art of suggesting good or at the very least not terrible resources to start people's inquiry into subjects they aren't familiar with, as well as being a unified voice acting in the public interest, to retain and expand those same offerings.
At least in the US, libraries are a major resource for homeless people, children without access to computers, etc. Libraries also serve a social/enrichment function in many communities.
I agree with the premise that ebooks can be a better experience than paper books, I don't agree that pirate libraries can replace, or even serve a similar purpose to physical libraries though.
Ah, I'm not comparing e-books to paper books; rather I'm comparing free libraries of e-books against DRM-locked lending libraries of e-books (the ecosystem that the OP article is about).
You are absolutely right about the searchability aspect. I want a PDF copy of every book I read now (I still prefer to read actually the deadtree copies) so I can find something again later.
But until we can demonstrate that digital libraries can preserve works themselves and access to them for hundreds/thousands of years, I would hesitate to suggest that libraries should be left to die on the vine.
This reads like that awful take a few years ago that libraries need to be replaced by private bookstores. Like the author of that, I don’t think you are familiar with the role that libraries play in their local community and probably should not prescribing a technocratic solution on an institution that you fundamentally do not understand.
Awful take dude, you don't realize that libraries are currenty on the front lines of America's problems where in a alternative universe, the nation should have done the job not to mention that libraries are under attack by mostly all fronts (governments, politicians, publishers, copyright cartel, right wing zealots just to name a few).
I think we're actually in agreement that the "library" part of a library is obsolete; it's just (as I understand) you and the sibling comments are using a neologistic definition of "library" that's unrelated to mine. Your link explains it as a place for social workers to care for clients. I'm fine with closing libraries and replacing them with that stuff—I'm not going to quibble on language, but that is not a library.
I should have considered this alternative definition before I wrote my comment, and how I phrased it. I see now exactly how it's been misinterpreted, and that people think I'm attacking unhoused people or something.
You do realize that most people still borrow physical books, right?
> A pirate can run a local LLM for natural-language queries, and find a semantic needle in a thousand-page haystack; or select a dozen excerpts and present them side-by-side for immediate comparison. How can the clunky system of DRM-locked lending e-book readers compete? Near-future. A personal LLM could track a researcher's progress page by page, and pro-actively recommend reading suggestions for an individual chapter from an individual book from a million-volume library—and instantly display it, highlighting special lines, glossing words, annotating jargon, hyperlinking (other) books, writing explanations in the marginalia, translating languages. Transformative creations. What's the poor schmuck stuck in Andrew Carnegie's library doing?
Almost all these capabilities exist. Yet we do not have pirate libraries doing this. I will not simply assume they will happen if/when libraries disappear.
At the moment, the library offers more utility than these pirate libraries. Perhaps not more features, but definitely more utility.
Honey, a new copypasta just dropped! This made me laugh almost as much as the first time I read the navy seal 'nothing personnel, kid' copypasta. Amazing.
I genuinely cannot tell if this is sincere or satire (a hallmark of satire!). It's peak HN. I don't know what's funnier, this being sincere or it being a well crafted satire of the utterly insane beliefs of the deeply out-of-touch rand apologists (who genuinely don't seem to be aware that other people experience the world differently than them) that plague the tech industries. Beautiful.
These are feelings not argumentation. Since the dawn of ebooks this has been true. Referencing electronic material is amazing. Books are incredible with physical libraries being one of the most important aspect, but the current form of digital libraries is a dead end.
I'm absolutely sincere and I'll reply to any well-intentioned questions.
I don't think I'm out of touch. I think this is the future of society and technology—meaning for the future for absolutely everyone, not just a few tech elites. It's jarring to me to see that flavor of accusation, when pirate libraries are freely available to billions of people who don't even have theoretical access to the stuff you people are talking about.
Who is going to create all this content once it's going to be put up on this pirate library that billions of people use for free? I've written a couple free books but you don't need a pirate library to access them. They're on my website.
But if I were thinking of writing a book partially to make money and I knew it was just going to be given away and there was no reason for anyone to buy it, I wouldn't bother. Especially given most books have cost in addition to the author's time associated with them. Few authors are going to make a living off lectures and book readings. And most readers aren't going to buy physical books when they can get an e-book for free.
I'm sure some of that happens. But generationally (and what's happened with vinyl notwithstanding) I have to believe that large bulging bookshelves in homes will become less common than in the past. Especially to the degree that more people may be inclined to live in smaller urban apartments.
My personal bookshelf is tiny and evershrinking. But you never know--maybe books will pull a vinyl.
But I think I'd still sell ebooks if I offered them, given the number of requests I've had. (They're programming books and those don't lend themselves well to ebooks.)
Certainly. "How to" books generically I tend to prefer as physical books. I'll buy a super-discounted cookbook now and then if it looks interesting but I much prefer physical cookbooks in general. Same for home repair, etc.--though a lot of that is YouTube these days.
I'm slowly depopulating my house of books I almost certainly won't open again by taking a couple bags to my town library for their annual book sale--and am absolutely not adding any new bookshelves.
