That sounds absolutely horrible. The whole point of a book is it's finality. I don't want to have to pull a book as a site down every time I want to read a book. It sounds like this model is focused on some sort of DRM approach that has little to no usefulness for people who want to read a book.
Do you mean you don’t want to scroll to consume content or do you mean that you don’t like to download content on demand? Or both? And, no I don’t like "rights management" of the user, so fuck DRM fwiw.
Have you seen Bubblin (https://bubblin.io) on the iPad? (Disc. I am one of the developers behind it.)
Sadly, books are already DRM'ed either by being on dead-tree or by being behind proprietary tech like that of Kindle.
Both are bad for books. Web is a ray of hope, IMO.
I don't like the idea all around. I looked at the site you referenced and it brings me no advantage over how I read books today. I honestly don't think an HTML variant of books are what people are after. What I want, as a consumer, is an identical workflow to how I buy paper books and I want as close to a paper reading experience when I choose to buy an electronic book. It looks like you've positioned yourself to be a walled garden publishing platform. I want to be able to download my books. The formats that exist today do a good enough job to read on devices. My Sony eReader from 2011 works still. I got a great ROI out of that device as I've read hundreds of books on it. I don't want books as a service.
And no, not all outlets are DRM'ed. I'll say it again: how you're doing books brings no advantages and, some additional disadvantages. No thanks.
> What I want, as a consumer, is an identical workflow to how I buy paper books
You mean like video cassettes? No. That's not how web works—and there's no need for longform to hang-on to workflows of the past.
I cannot believe that you just defended Sony as someone for 'not building a walled garden' in your response above. Their eReader died for exactly for same reasons you're using against the web. Either you have no idea about what you're talking here or don't understand how web works generally.
No, I didn't say anything about video cassettes. You did. Video cassettes died because of technology improvements. Last I checked the traditional paperback still exists and sells well.
I did defend Sony. For building a product that I still use and can load up with books and PDFs from today. You should also be aware Sony still sells the same line they did when they started in the space. Their readers are designed for a slightly different market now, but they still sell - and at a premium. Being someone in the "disrupt the ebook market" I would have thought you'd be in the know for your competition.
Regardless I know what I want. And that's part of your problem in your response:
> Either you have no idea about what you're talking here or don't understand how web works generally.
With that brazen arrogance your company will likely struggle. I've been in the technology industry for over 20 years and have seen plenty of your types come and go. Best of luck!
And what about those who can’t/do not have the privilege to buy that premium Sony eReader? It’s never in your interest for any upstart to die.
As to my project, it’s built on 100% democratic open source tech. Pretty lame that I have to tell you this despite having linked to the website earlier.
> As to my project, it’s built on 100% democratic open source tech. Pretty lame that I have to tell you this despite having linked to the website earlier.
What does that even mean - "100% democratic open source tech"? Does that mean you built your business on other people and organization's contributions to OSS and that's somehow democratic? Because the open source bits you have out there (Bookiza) seem to be generally geared towards tooling for your for-profit publishing company (Bubblin). To me it seems kind of like what Sony does, for lack of a better analogy.
