from Amazon
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Netflix of books?
Safari Books Online has a catalog of technical books, manuals, and other materials. You have digital access to that content via a subscription model. The unlimited access is 43$ per month. (It also gives you about 5 downloads per month, so you can actually “own” it). It’s like Netflix or Cable TV. You are paying for access to the library.
Tim was asking what would be the price for access to the entire catalog of all books everywhere. He suggested, as a discussion point, 100$ per month. The readers there seem to be suggesting a far lower number.
Clearly, given what we know that seems to work (Safari) for a subset of material, it seems that 100$ per month is pretty low. However, given the response of the readers, in terms of an all-or-nothing, then it seems that a large share of readers will simply not make use of it.
In essence, it’s the Basic Cable v Gold Cable. And the readers, I think, are thinking of books as a niche product, the way Safari is niche (technical books). So, they can’t imagine 100$ a month, because they think more a la carte, like Cable TV.
If this were to come to pass, I think market forces would simply require niche offers. So, 1$ to 30$ a month for each niche, and maybe 200$ a month for the entire catalog of everything everywhere.
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