84
submitted 4 months ago by xsecur@noc.social to c/books@lemmy.world

Enshittification of Libby & Overdrive. This was long time coming. This deserves attention and we need more independent libraries.
https://tweesecake.social/@weirdwriter/112465274302648993

@bookstodon @books #books #ebooks

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 4 months ago

The problem is never on the tech end, assuming you wanted to make a good platform. That's probably a 400-level CS class project, especially if you're only dealing with a single library system that doesn't have multi-million-user-scale and five-nines reliability needs.

The pitfalls are 99% about the business relationships and having to pre-enshittify the system to service them-- getting the publishers to trust the platform will enforce DRM and related random shitty deals (i. e. that ebooks have to be retired after n loans, as though they wear out like a paperback). I'd expect there's virtually no trust for a new player.

What's needed is mandatory licensing. The libraries and their software dev partners decide what terms they want, they get a standard price card, and the publishers have to eat it.

this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
84 points (94.7% liked)

Books

4080 readers
10 users here now

A community for all things related to Books.

Rules

  1. Be Nice

Official Bingo Posts:

Related Communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS