Hacker News Reader

Comment by Causality1 | Hacker News Reader

I just wish Audible had adopted a Netflix-style distribution system rather than an Amazon.com style one. Watching all the Netflix I want costs me fifteen dollars a month. Listening to all the Audible content I want would cost me hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month because I'd have to purchase each piece of media individually.

View on HN

Hoopla and Overdrive have audiobooks through your library or some just for using their service. Costs you nothing. Having it through your library gets you more options though. Might help you lower your costs. Aside from Audible you could check out Downpour. Similar service to Audible but less restrictive on ownership.

Until you want to read a book that isn’t currently available. Maybe it’s different on the American Netflix (and similar), but currently none of the streaming services in Denmark have all seasons of x-files.

I prefer buying things to renting them, but of course with modern digital distribution you often end up renting them even when you “buy” because of DRMs.

Maybe I’m old, but I just don’t get modern media consumption. I mean, if we look beyond DRMs (and maybe you can crack Amazon’s), then you’ll own 120 books in 10 years as opposed to the Netflix model where in 10 years and the same amount of money, you’ll own 0 books.

Some of us don't care about owning. I always gave 95%+ of my paper books away, long before I started reading digitally.

This is what Storytel and others provide in Sweden. The price is 169 SEK per month for as much listening as you want. The English spoken assortment is quite big but uneven, there are gems there. I believe the Swedish spoken assortment is quite close to cover all there is.

I subscribe to Storytel and use it mostly as background listening. It is not worth it to pay by the book.

Have you tried scribd?

Scribd used to be really good, but then they switched to a model where a small number of books are in the "all you can eat" pile and the rest are on a credit system like Audible.

The best "all you can eat" plan I've seen is from Playster. A very decent selection around the same price as Audible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com