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by Aeolun 2202 days ago
What I think I deserve for free is the ability to decide whether a book is worth the price or not. This is simple in a bookstore, but when I’m online the default seems to be that I have to shell out to even take a look.
2 comments

100% agree. The death of in-person bookstores has killed that mode of browsing, and I have yet to see a viable replacement when buying online.
Many ebooks have some degree of preview. In some cases, it's imperfect, but it seems overall at least roughly equivalent to a bookstore.
It’s not roughly equivalent. I often look at the free previews on Amazon and Google Books to check print citations or read a few pages from a chapter of interest, but usually the pages I want to read are unavailable. An online equivalent to bookstores is not possible because there’s no way to glare at a customer for treating the store as a library.