> To tell us that we had to load some commercial app on our device to get eBooks, rather than compatibility with some existing, popular eReader at least

I don't understand this - isn't a popular eReader also commercial? If you had to log into Kindle to get the book, would that be better?

Kobo, Onyx, and more e-ink devices, I never had to install any app. Even if I bought it on Amazon, I can deDRM it with ease (bless Calibre and deDRM tools), and then go on my own merry way, with cute e-readers, and actually owning the file.

Edit: And for epubs, if the devices doesn't have the capability ootb (e.g Hisense phones) themeselves, there is e.g open-source, really well done, KOReader :3

Understood - thanks. I think I managed to pick a side issue rather than a core issue. I think this is my real question:

Given libraries traditionally worked because books are not (easily) replicable, and so selling a library a book didn't mean a drop in sales particularly, how do you keep the same situation with open digital formats? How do you make the publishing economics work, outside of schemes such as Amazon's Kindle Unlimited?

Publishers have historically viewed a library copy as a threat of patrons who would have otherwise purchased their product. The economics of publishing itself are transformed with digital formats. There is (virtually) no material cost. Replication is immediate and easy. Transportation is (again, virtually) free.

Book Publishers largely are the ones to lose out in digital publishing. The only thing they have left to offer is connections for distribution. And since most of their costs were associated with the production and distribution of a material book, most of those costs disappear too. Cory Doctorow has asserted in the past that the biggest issue any author has is discovery - do people actually know the work I wrote exists?

Once you've crossed that barrier, if you ask people to pay for your work many of them will. Even if you don't prevent them from freely replicating your work.

Yes, indeed - that's the conundrum I'm posing. Why should a publisher promote a book, or pay an advance for a book, that might sell very few copies in a world of free and peer to peer distribution?

They (and their authors) can exist in a system where people pay $10 for a book, instead of $0 for a book. Digitally enabled libraries are a tricky spanner in the works for them, so they create a walled garden app that simulates lending.

Thinking a little creatively, a simple modern alternative for digital lending might be a building with some nice chairs and coffee and 5k e-readers with a Kindle Unlimited (or library equivalent) subscription on them, and anyone can walk in. Then library services can also issue a fleet of them to people who sit below a certain income level.

Have you had any luck de-drming titles released in 2023? Calibre/de-drm stopped working for me for these, with no fix on the horizon.

epub is an open format and there are many open source epub reader.

Nov.el in emacs or aldiko in android for instance.

The idea of getting an epub from the library and reading it within emacs sounds quite nice BTW :)

I think their definition of popular could differ from yours and be something like "more than 50 people use it" rather than "more than 50,000 people use it".

Do you check the profile of users before commenting?

I don't think that is feasible, do you?

It seems my strategy of defaulting to gender neutral pronouns no longer has a 100% success rate and may need modified.

Appreciate your efforts to oppose the lazy enshittification of pronouns!

Plenty of free eReader apps out there. I use Readera.

This comment reeks of entitlement; literally everything you could do before is still possible at your local library. You can still check out physical copies of anything you like, now additionally you can also check out digital copies.

You really ought to “play footsie” with Libby; it’s a fantastic app that enables more people to have access to your library’s content than before.

Kind of insane to me that someone like you who knows the value of a resource like the library wants to restrict how people are able to engage with the content and therefore restrict who has access.

> You can still check out physical copies of anything you like

Are you sure? Went through UNO (University of Nebraska Omaha) catalog last week only to find that half (or more) of their offerings that hit my search results were online-only.

I suspect most/all of those offerings are as a result of specific grants or agreements between libraries or even Overdrive itself, that would not have existed absent a digital method of distribution.

i too feel entitled to get stuff from a public library w/o having to deal with a for-profit company.

also drm-free media because i grew up with copying stuff from libraies (books, cassette tapes, cds, vhs ...) and imho this is still a big requirement.

> To tell us that we had to load some commercial app on our device to get eBooks, rather than compatibility with some existing, popular eReader at least

I don't get this point- Libby makes it super easy to load up a book on my Kindle.

Then might I recommend Torrents and libgen.is

You can cover most of your materials that way. No sense in paying $$$$ for shit DRM crap that's not even a sale.

You know, I prefer to patronize my local public library. I'm not a voracious consumer of media, except maybe for YouTube. Downloading torrents all day is not how I roll. Part of the joy of a library is the physical experience of walking in there and being in an environment that's conducive to browsing and learning and expanding my horizons. It's about being around my neighbors, people in my town, families and people my age. These days, there's a café in my library, so I purchase a bite to eat, hang out with the free WiFi, do what I want.

Sometimes I visit the stacks and peek at books, and I've checked some out. Books are great because you can open up an exercise/yoga book and set it down, and you can see it while you're working out, and the book passively shows you exactly the page you want to see, for as long as I'm looking at it.

There are reference librarians working the desk all day. And they know how to find everything! They seldom serve me a sponsored link! One guy even brought up the subject of Tor/Onion networks!

I enjoyed browsing for DVDs and music in the library, too. My library even offers seeds, that patrons can "check out" (we never need to return them) and we can start to grow a vegetable or herb garden.

There are classes, workshops, and special interest groups. The librarians and volunteers will teach you how to use an iPhone from scratch, or they will teach you how to search online databases and use the Advanced Options.

I can't get those perks on an app, or a website. But I can access the Internet in the library. I can use a public computer, I can bring my Chromebook, I can use my smartphone. There's a charging station right there.

Safety was one of the first learning experiences I persevered through when I spent a little bit of time on the streets (very little). Shared company with quite a few homicidal psycho killer-looking characters on the dirty dog (greyhound), so I fully support the idea that libraries can be havens for people trying to survive homelessness. But libraries are also major hub for upper middle class women like my wife, and they want access to systems that fit into their worlds. And their worlds revolve around mobile (I waffle between graphene OS and flip phones). Libraries will cater towards this class of user over people like myself or you. But I wouldn't label that "enshittification". That's a superficial and shallow minded view of the organic library network in the US.

> ... for upper middle class women like my wife, and they want access to systems that fit into their worlds. And their worlds revolve around mobile ...

I think this is actually one of the main causes / attack vectors for enshittification, and the reason it'll never be stopped. No one says "no" to upper middle class women, ever, in the U.S. at least. And why would you? They constitute most of consumer spending.

In the case of my library, using Overdrive you can still checkout a book as an ePub. It has to clear the Adobe DRM solution, but you get an ePub you can read on virtually any eReader made in the last 20 years. Libby is a specific App, and I think Overdrive as a company really really wants you to use that, instead of just downloading the ePub, but you do have an option.

> To tell us that we had to load some commercial app on our device to get eBooks, rather than compatibility with some existing, popular eReader at least, or just give us the ePub or PDF.

Libby is available as a website and offers ePubs or PDFs. It also supports many popular e-readers and can automatically deliver titles to some Kobos and all Kindles.