You sure do have a LOT to say about Audible, despite demonstrating here a clear lack of understanding of how the service works, its market position, how much it charges, and so on.
JAQing off in defense of a monopolist is a bad look.
I'll gladly laugh and accept the jab that I'm a little too active in this thread. I don't know why this topic got me today, but it clearly did.
That said, please educate me on where I'm giving a clear lack of understanding on how it works. I'm basically seeing a couple big name authors that are effectively telling me I'm a bad person for buying audio books from Audible. But, far as I can see, every alternative is complete utter shite. Except the library, from which I still gladly get audio books on CD.
I don't think these authors intend for you to interpret their criticism of Audible's business practices as a statement about your moral character. One of their central points is that Audible's business practices have severely limited consumer choice in the audiobook market. You can't be held morally responsible for a choice that's been taken out of your hands.
May not be their intent, but at large declaiming something is bad and "enshitifying" the internet is a very transitive label?
And again, there is no evidence that audible is lessoning consumer choice? There is some evidence that they lesson producer practical choice. But even that is weak? With few exceptions, mostly audible produced works, I can find all of the books I care about elsewhere.
The cumulative point of this thread seems to be that they are getting to work with 75% of 90% of the audible book market (you claim books are available elsewhere = 25% commission).
You can call that whatever you want, but it sounds a lot like the descent to pre-Internet situations that weren't markers of stable quality and that many people who survived the 1980s don't want to see again.
They have 90% of the audio book market, likely. They do not have exclusives on that much, though. I'd hazard that 90% of the available book market is through the major publishers, still. At large, this makes sense, as most books are still written with upfront payments from publishers.
I would also not really shed much of a tear for Audible. I just don't understand the idea that getting rid of them moves us further from the old style. Seems more likely that the publishers would brow beat any future entry into the market so that it was much closer to how things were in the 80s and 90s.
I don't think this is a very accurate description of how things work in Germany. It's exceedingly rare in any Western jurisdiction for the aggrieved party to press charges. This power is usually left to government prosecutors, who are probably more impartial than the complainant.
You really missed the whole point of their post didn't you? If we are going to allow a BSL-4 lab to exist and introduce the risk of possible leaks or other problems, we need to get something in return. That "something" needs to be more than what other lower security labs can already do. It is fascinating that a lab which was supposedly researching coronavirsuses for so long (and which may have led to the outbreak, but regardless) was unable to do anything that other labs could not.
Libertarianism has been exposed as bullshit over and over again. To dismiss these well-documented concerns as "ideological defense mechanisms" is just sad.
FWIW homeopaths and chiropractors use the same sad defense.
There are PLENTY, certainly thousands and probably tens of thousands, of works which represent this monster's "view/ideas/philosphy" and weren't written by a deranged murderer. So you can understand the concern.
If you comment any pro-Elon Musk argument on a subreddit, no matter how tame, you will get banned. Happened to me in /r/worldnews. This isn't some conspiracy: mods are actively banning discussion.
JAQing off in defense of a monopolist is a bad look.