[PinguTS]

"Thankfully" is an interesting view from the reader side. Would be interesting to know what was the impact on the authors side.

Got it cheaper because the authors got now less money or got it cheaper because the publisher got now less money?

Because I know, that (at least for technical books) the pay for the authors is not really great. It's more like a reputation than making money out of it.

[chrisseaton]

Poor people should be able to buy books without having to subsidise your bookshop aesthetic.

[criddell]

Is that the main impact of the German law? I was thinking it might improve an author's chances of earning a reasonable amount of money from writing which I think could be a good thing.

Do you know if there's any correlation between the number of bookstores in a city and the amount people in those cities read? Is it possible that more expensive but also more ubiquitous books leads to more books being read, or are price and readership always inversely correlated?

[gadders]

>> Do you know if there's any correlation between the number of bookstores in a city and the amount people in those cities read? Is it possible that more expensive but also more ubiquitous books leads to more books being read, or are price and readership always inversely correlated?

I would say they are always inversely correlated if you are poor.

[criddell]

Does the German law also fix the price of used books? If not, then I could see how a thriving (but expensive) new book market could lead to a robust used market which could help readership.

[hobofan]

Libraries allow (not only) poor people to read as much books as they want for free or ~the price of a cheap book. That seems to be a much better mechanism to allow for literacy independent of income than trying to make books cheaper.

[chrisseaton]

Why shouldn’t they get to own books like you can, without paying above market prices so middle-class people can have nice spaces?

[gadders]

Exactly. Enabling poor people to buy books is a far greater social good than having somewhere comfortable for hipsters to sit with their laptops and middle class mums to push their three wheeled buggies round.

[PinguTS]

Actually, you don't need to own a book to read it. We in Germany have a great concept for this, its called: Library, You can go to your local community library and decide to either read the book there or to take it home and read it where ever you like. The rent for the first 2 weeks or sometimes the first 4 weeks is free of charge.

These libraries these days even not only have books to rent out. They have online-books, games (like those physical games to interact physically with other people you like), and other medias.

Even the membership in those community libraries is mostly free of charge, with a few exceptions.

[gadders]

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33149867

[lupire]

Why? If you are poor you probably also have less real estate and so purchasing a non-trivial quantity of books is less convenient than borrowing.

Also not sure why you blast that sexism around.

[gadders]

Haha. "It doesn't matter if we make buying books expensive because poor people can't afford shelf-space." Nice.