While reading the article I found it extremely interesting to think about what you can buy in a local store. I love finding music off the beaten path, but I see to find that when I go to a local store I can't locate the music I want. I am a bit technologically behind. I use a mp3 player that is easily six years old. I use a desktop to do my school work and my phone doesn't even connect to the internet. That being said I love to have connection to music not played on the radio. I hate hearing the same songs every day. I hate Nicki Minaj and all of those other artists referred to as music. So I prefer to listen to a cd with my music choices.
I believe since that article was posted it's becoming even less common for people to buy music in a store. Now people listen to Pandora.com at home and have satelite radio in their cars. It has come to a point, where basic radio is rarely listened to. I unfortunately do not have satelite radio, so I have to either listen to a cd or listen to the radio. When I am at home I only listen to Pandora. They play music you like, with no talking, low ads and it's static free. I feel like that makes it much better.
No matter about the choices of online books, I still prefer to have a physical book in my hand. I do believe that Amazon.com is hurting the book industry, because it is much easier to find books online than it is in the store. A lot of what was said in the article is true. I believe we will continue to evolve multimedia, just like we have over the last century.
Although I understand your position that amazon is hurting the physical book business I also see it as helping the Author's who are not on the top 100 list. Searching Amazon for a subject and getting a list of known and unknown authors to chose from helps the little authors compete with the well knowns in this world. A physical book store only has enough room for book that will surely make them money, Amazon can offer space to the underpublished Authors as well.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with you that local bookstores cannot compete with Amazon even if they (the local bookstore) have a website. And I personally do prefer a physical copy of a book be it paperback or hard cover. (I like turning the pages and holding it in my hands.) Since there are always other ways to look at things, I see where Amazon is also good. Because of their size they can offer books at a lower price and a special shipping rate. They can offer authors an incredible audience.
ReplyDeleteFortunately we still have choices and can either hold the book in our hands, read it as an e-book, as well as listen to it as an audio book.