[eswangren]

Why wOuld I feel the need to inspect a book before buying it? I am working under the assumption that no pages will be missing. It's worked out fine thus far. You do realize that purchasing items over the Internet has been working well for some time now, right?

[ciupicri]

Purchasing from the Internet works fine until you have problems. Here in Romania you can't inspect the contents of the package until you sign for its delivery. Then if it's broken you get to keep the pieces, unless the merchant is nice. Of course, there's also the option of arguing with them, but it doesn't guarantee anything.

I bought a couple of years ago an LCD monitors from today's Romanian Amazon wanna-be and they assured me that if the monitor has any broken pixels I can have it replaced. The next day after the delivery, I discovered I had 1 broken pixel. I called them back only to find out that they can replace it only if it has 3 or 4 broken pixels as specified by some ISO standard. After this, I regretted that I didn't buy the one that I saw in a regular store and worked fine.

[zuppy]

That's not true (probably you didn't knew). If you buy something online, you have 10 days to return it without giving a reason (and if they don't specify that clearly when you buy it, the period extends to 30 days). That's the law, it doesn't matter if they agree or not.

[ciupicri]

This was before any laws as far as I know. Also if I'm not mistaking, even with these laws the package must be intact. Otherwise I wonder if you can buy a TV or computer, use it for N days then return it. Do the same with the other stores until the first one forgets the repeat.

[mayneack]

In Romania?

[Revisor]

In the whole EU the customer can return items purchased online up until X days since the purchase arrival where X varies by country. There are some exceptions like digital items, custom made ware, DVDs etc. Check your local laws.

[greghinch]

You've obviously not tried purchasing things in a 3rd world market, such as in China

[mseebach]

You're failing to account for the fairly sizable chunk of the world that's both not the US and not the third world. Such as Germany, where people do seem to prefer physically inspecting items.

[latch]

China hasn't been a 3rd world country for some time. It isn't even close. Sure there are massive pockets of poverty (with 1 billion people, there are massive pockets of everything)...but visit India or parts of Africa if you want to see what 3rd world is.

[cglace]

If we were going by the original definitions of first world, second world third world. China would be a second world country since it was aligned with Russia and not the US.

[billforsternz]

Not really, the Russians and Chinese were both communist but were rivals rather than allies through most of the cold war.

[gaius]

There was no first and second, it's third world as in "third person". NATO, Warsaw Pact, everyone else.

[speleding]

Yes, there was a first and second world, it used to denote then Nato and USSR block respectively, that's how the third world got its name. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World

[greghinch]

I supposed you could call China not a 3rd world, but I've been to China, Nepal, and parts of Africa, and a lot of rural China looks like the poor parts of the other two. How people in poverty live in China is still quite a bit below how the impoverished live in western countries

[oinksoft]

I like to flip a book open that I'm considering at a store to random sections. Not one of 20 pre-selected pages offered in some online shop, but just random places, so I can see if it's my speed. This has saved me from purchasing many (seemingly) awful works.

[robryan]

Google Books supports that kind of browsing pretty well showing selected chunks of a lot of books.

[nickolai]

> Why wOuld I feel the need to inspect a book before buying it?

To make sure the pages will not start falling out before you're done reading it ? I had that happen to me several times with cheap paperbacks litterally falling apart before I was even through the first quarter of the book

[justincormack]

I have once bought a book with missing pages. Not common though.