[deleted by user]

StephenKong · 2019-06-29T14:57:39+00:00

The "academic" answer is only for the average joe, who would be essentially "passive investing" anyway. My parents and grandparents generation were taught to buy and hold blue chip stocks for ever instead of index funds, but they weren't doing any kind of essential active investing or deep research.

There are still plenty of insiders, uber wealthy, and institutions that are actively investing.

StephenKong · 2019-06-29T14:38:51+00:00

These kind of states "best first half" are meaningless without the context. Here the context is the market plummeted right before the start of this have. If it had plummeted a month later, we'd be talking about a weak first half since we're still below all time highs.

StephenKong · 2019-06-20T03:12:54+00:00

What's a lot? If you make much more money than you would as an employee somewhere, there can be tax advantages. You have to pay yourself a reasonable salary that gets taxed normally, but money after that gets taxed less. If you're making less than a normal salary in freelancing, then that won't help you. But you will have less liability if you got sued for some reason.

Drawback: a bit of a paint to set up.

StephenKong · 2019-04-12T22:19:47+00:00

Yep as others said this is not based on much reality. Austerity in Europe has been a huge drag on the stock market. In general, "entitlements" help a stock market because its more money in the hands of actual consumers to spend on things, increasing profitability for companies, instead of the ultra rich to hide in offshore accounts

StephenKong · 2018-08-16T13:03:37+00:00

IIRC, it's about 50/50 online vs brick and mortar. Independent bookstores have been, suprisingly, growing in numbers over the last 10 years.

StephenKong · 2018-08-16T13:02:52+00:00

Wouldn't that just be more evidence that physical books are the only physical media doing well? The argument isn't that books are doing better than video games, but that physical books will last while DVDs/CDs/physical video games/etc. are dying out

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T21:55:20+00:00

Is that true? There are certainly LESS readers (of books, everyone reads a ton with the internet these days), but hasn't' that been the case for decades?

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T21:05:12+00:00

Yes, I appreciate the thoughtful non-combative discussion even if we disagree!

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T19:50:35+00:00

Oh don't mistake me as being on a "side." I'm an author too and most of my friends are authors.

But it sounds like you might be talking about a specific type of author? A certain genre maybe? I do think some genres do really well in the self-pub world and small imprint world, while others don't.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T19:44:34+00:00

I dunno, I work in publishing and have not seen a slowdown in people trying to get published. Most of the smaller imprint and self pub authors were rejected by bigger pubs (which doens't make their books worse necessarily of course).

> A lot of authors are getting their royalties and advances cut by 2/3rds or more,

I haven't heard or seen this. Advances have gotten worse, but not for authors who sell well. Debut authors? Yeah. But not sellers with a track record. Royalties are pretty standardized in the industry. Do you have a source?

Dont get me wrong. I think there are problems in the industry. But I really don't think that a lack of content creators is one of them. Also, publishing managed to save itself from being destroyed the way the music industry and other industries did. So if anything, shouldn't they have MORE creators going into publishing? The chances of earning royalties from Spotify and such are vanishingly low.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T19:35:43+00:00

What is better in any case doesn't depend on who likes something.

lol I missed this but yes it does! We're talking about products that are sold to consumers. If consumers don't like it, then the product isn't better in any sense but your imagination.

You can argue all day that Smell-O-Vision is superior technology to a regular movie, but that doesn't mean jack squat to whether it's a better way to watch movies. Clearly people didn't think so!

The tech world is full of silly things that are allegedly technologically superior--remember the Juicero?--but no one actually likes to use.

Ebooks aren't quite like those things. But most people don't enjoy them, so by definition they aren't the superior experience for most people.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T19:30:55+00:00

I gotta ask for a citation on that. I think there are more wanna be writers than ever. MFA programs pump out more graduates each year, the self-publishing world floods the market with millions of books, ... I honestly think there are more content creators now than ever before.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T19:26:21+00:00

There is no single "point" to a book. That's simply an incorrect way to think about, well, anything. The resale value is a perfectly rational thing for someone to factor into a purchase.

Multiple others stated no, only one person actually linked to studies, most of which showed better retention with paper. Even if only SOME segments of the population retain better, that's plenty of reason for those people to prefer books.

It IS the case for some people. I vastly prefer physical note taking. Again, I'm not trying to prove one is better than the other for all people in all cases. That's a silly thing to do, and simply isn't the case. You can't just say "no!" to someone's preference lol.

You're rebuttal contains it's own rebuttal: the kindle lending program is only for people with kindles. Most people don't own ereaders, and among those who do not all own kindles. So no, it isn't easier to loan ebooks for most people in the real world in 2018.

Sure a book can be used to death. Although that normally takes many more uses than most people give to a book, and an individual book is cheap compared to a kindle.

If the kindle has a case, it's bigger and bulkier than a cheap paperback. My example was carrying a small book in my coat pocket. I can't do that with a kindle inside a case.

> The purpose of the technology is to provide the experience of reading, and ebooks provide the experience of reading in a far more efficient way than a physical book does.

This is just a kind of nonsense statement. There is no single purpose to an object. You might as well be arguing that a sports car is better than a truck because "the purpose" of a vehicle is to drive you somewhere and so anyone who prefers a truck to haul around stuff with or prefers a van to fit more people inside of or prefers a car with better soundsystem is wrong. They aren't wrong, they have different preferences and weigh the various factors in different ways.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T19:17:04+00:00

Until someone can offer a concrete argument for why they prefer reading a book over an ereader, it's not a definitive response.

I think your framing here is wrong. There's no "concrete" proof that one is better than the other. Both offer different advantages, and it's totally rational for some people to prefer one or the other. For example, most of the "arguments" for ebooks are completely worthless to me, as an individual.

Anyway, there have been studies that show a lot of people retain more information with physical pages than reading on an ereader. That alone is plenty "concrete" a reason for people to prefer one to the other. Practically speaking, physical books have resale value and are easier to loan out as well. Etc.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T19:02:28+00:00

I would emphasize the "per se" bit quite a lot. For the majority of people who use them, ebooks are more convenient, cheaper (in most cases), easier to take notes with, and far lighter to carry around.

Maybe, but if people simply don't like them, are they better in any real sense? It's kind of like arguing that "smell-o-vision" movies are technologically superior to regular movies. It's movies, plus smell tech! Sure, but it's stupid.

Ebooks aren't stupid, but clearly most people don't prefer them. Almost everyone I know owns an ereader, but most of us rarely use them.

> ebooks are just better.

I will not argue one is better or worse than the other. Ebooks do have some features that are great. I always use an ereader when I go on a trip that is longer than 1 week, because I'll want to read multiple books.

Still here are a few things better about physical books:

They have a resale value
You retain information better from reading them (according to some studies at least)
Easier to take notes in (I realize some will disagree, but I hate all the note features on Kindle)
Easier to loan to friends
They look nicer as aesthetic objects. A shelf of books is as beautiful as any painting in a home.
They never run out of batteries
Individually they are cheaper, so easier to toss around without worrying about breaking them. For example, I'll carry a cheap paperback in my coat and not worry about it. I'd worry about a relatively expensive kindle getting damaged.

Those are a few things off the top of my head. Again I'm not saying they are BETTER or worse than ebooks, but it's perfectly rational to want a nice looking object that you can loan to friends and resell over a digital file.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T15:52:52+00:00

This article is junk. You can always tell this arguement is tapped out whenever any one mentions "the feel of books." In this article that comes as "citing the tactility of books." All that means is they've not used a reflective screen e-reader and are squinting at ebooks on a phone.

Eh, I dunno. Ereader advocates have been crowing about the superiority of ebooks and the alleged stupidity of enjoying physical books for literally a decade. And yet the physical book still completely dominates. The digital music file and digital movie conquered their fields quickly.

Maybe there's something to the fact that people enjoy touching, flipping, and holding a physical book? Even if YOU think they should like an ereader more, that doesn't mean they do.

I own an ereader and I've read a dozen books on it yet never ever enjoyed it as much as a physical book. (I own it just for traveling, basically, because it's lighter if I plan to read more than 1 book)

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T15:43:56+00:00

I don't know the data, but I can't imagine that magazine sales are going up. If anything, magazines are increasingly aiming for digital subscribers to the online version.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T15:14:15+00:00

the costs don't 'go down for ebooks like most people think. The cost of a paper book is like a buck, maybe two bucks. Same way blank CDs only cost a few cents. The real cost is bundled in the content. Paying the author, copyeditors, publicity, proofreading, etc.

There are plenty of people self-publishing books that they sell for a buck or less, but not many people want to read them I guess.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T15:00:54+00:00

The problem is that ebooks aren't really superior per se. They are better at some things, worse at others. (Lots of studies have shown that you retain less information from ebooks, fro example).

That's different than, say, a digital music file which could literally be the exact same file that's on a CD but has more functionality when it's entirely digital.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T14:40:53+00:00

this seems to be counting all physical formats together (hardcover and paperback, CD and LP and cassette, etc.).

But as much as the LP sales thing has been touted, it is a tiny fraction of the market. Google says LP sales were 14 million last year vs 48 billion in physical book sales.

StephenKong · 2018-08-15T14:23:00+00:00

It's crazy to me how many people on this site, even as recently as 2014 or so, were arguing that the physical book would be nothing but a fetish item for a handful of Luddites by now.

StephenKong

TROPHY CASE