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Comment by JackFr | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a weird way to look at books. I pay for the novel, and then I get to read it. The benefit is in the reading not simply the completing.

Do I pay for Netflix, and then I pay again by spending time watching movies?

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Indeed you do! Time is a strange resource, as it's very finite, and also non-fungible (your time today is not the same as a day in the future, or in the past).

It's of course not transactional in the real life, but I think it's valuable to think things through this lens. So you have some time, how you spend it, what you gain from it, etc. For the same time investment, some shows are better than others, and sometimes, reflecting on the person's needs, another show is just a diminishing return compared to other ways of spending time.

Yeah it seems like such a strange mindset to me too. I feel like some people find it hard to think of things outside of a monetary system. We live in such a financialised world. You can't just read a book and enjoy it, you have to add it to your balance sheet, ammortise the costs, fill out a psychological tax return at the end of the year.

I don't think it's that weird. Reading is still work. It's a kind of work that often gives you more reward than you feel it takes away while doing it but I still think it makes sense to talk about a kind of cost here. Because it affects how we relate to the activities we chose.

Some books are immediately rewarding, like fiction, some are rewarding at multiple moments later in time, like fact books. (Not saying face books can't be rewarding in the moment as well though.)

In game design this doesn't seem like a far fetched concept. You often talk about grindy games for example.

Also, how else do you explain why we tend to buy books and then not read them? Maybe for books the cost is often the initial cost before you get into it enough to enjoy it?

I think the wording is a bit confusing, because the reading isn't the second payment, the time it takes is the second payment. You are paying the time it takes to do the thing in order to get the enjoyment of reading.

However, I still find this a strange analogy... time is not like money, you can't save it... that time spent reading the book was going to go away whether you read the book or not. You can't save up that time to spend it on something better later.

> time is not like money, you can't save it... that time spent reading the book was going to go away whether you read the book or not. You can't save up that time to spend it on something better later.

Time is not money, but it is opportunity cost.

Time allocated to X is time you have lost the ability to allocate to Y.

The decision is more clear if you already own the book (or have access to it). You spend time and get the reward of reading it.

Some years back, the RIAA floated a proposal that would make you pay every time you listened to a song. You would never actually own music, you would just pay for it every time you listen to it like you were a radio station. It's just greed.

I actually like the idea. Many things pay-per-use are actually cheaper unless you use it basically constantly, because if it isn't cheap enough, many people would stop using it, thinking: is listening to it right now really worth X amount? People have a strange attachment to the concept of ownership, so that they are willing to pay extra for it. Pay-per-use is actually a more profitable concept only when people are hesitant to buy something fully, because they are not sure if they would use it enough.

Would they send me a bill after a night out at the pub?

I would assume the pub would pay for playing it, same as radio is paying for playing it.

Well we already have this, it's called Spotify and Apple Music. I collect vinyl and I rather like having the whole album to listen to without paying anything more. If I had to pay per song which is IIRC the RIAA proposal, I would be less likely to explore music. I would stick to only music I can be reasonably certain is going to be good.

Wouldn't a pay-per-song scheme destroy independent bands so that only the biggest and most shared get listened to?

I don't get it. If you pay per use, i.e. pay the same if you listen to the same song 5 times vs 5 different songs, why should it inhibit exploration?

You'd listen 3 times instead of 5 to save on the monthly bill.

Same as when dialup Internet access was billed by the minute. Most people would limit their time online to reduce the bill, and didn't feel free to browse for hours every day if they found something interesting. Email and to some extent Usenet were popular because you only needed to go online for a few minutes to download and upload your messages; you could read and write offline for free. When unmetered "always on" connections arrived people's habits changed radically.

All makes sense, and that is why I said pay-per-use is usually less profitable, because back when dail-up was available, my internet bill was really lower than it is now. Granted, I am comparing apples and oranges, because I am also using the internet much more nowadays. But the argument that the greedy music industry wants to milk us by asking us to per-per-use is nonsense. They would make less money and probably people consume music more consciously.

When you ‘own’ music, what is it you think you own?

Intellectual property with respect to recorded media is weird.

When I "own" music, I interpret that as being able to listen to it whenever I want, forever, with no restriction. My digital music library (225GB of mostly FLAC files ripped from CDs and bought from Qobuz/Bandcamp) is close enough to ownership for me, even though I can't use most of it for commercial purposes or redistribute it or anything.

Yes you do, as time is a resource.

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