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Comment by crtasm | Hacker News Reader

While I know they need to fund servers somehow, the approach and wording of their download page doesn't sit right with me:

>Fast downloads - Become a member to support the long-term preservation of books, papers, and more. To show our gratitude for your support, you get fast downloads.

>[3 "Fast Partner Server" links]

>Refer a friend, and both you and your friend get 50% bonus fast downloads!

>[3 "Slow Partner Server" links]

$5/m gets 20 fast downloads a day.

I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this.

edit: I should have said that the donations page is important context too: https://annas-archive.org/donate

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From the FAQ, https://annas-archive.org/donation_faq

>If you don’t like how we operate our project, go run your own shadow library! All our code and data are open source, so nothing is stopping you. ;)

Or be more specific what doesn't sit right with you.

"Or be more specific what doesn't sit right with you."

What's not right with me, is that a donation is different from buying something, yet here it seems mixed in together.

So what are your thoughts about NPR totebags? Getting perks if you donate isn't unusual.

"Getting perks if you donate isn't unusual."

Small perks usually and I am critical of those as well, as they blurry the line. But here it rather looks like a usual subscription model to buy.

Faster access seems like a small perk, even without donating you can get books far faster than you'd be capable of reading them

Can you think of any legal mandates that might influence that decision?

Right now, no. What do you mean?

The whole site is illegal anyway. Is there a legal difference in "donating" and getting benefits. And "buying" for benefits, when the benefits are illegal in both cases?

Words don’t have the same significations around the world. It’s not about the legal meaning in the US but about the cultural (not legal) meaning of the word from where the author comes from.

For me (not in the US), donating have a different meaning than buying. When I buy, I become a customer and it establish a business relation and the organization owe me a bunch of things (the product/the service, my customer rights …).

When I donate, it’s mainly to support a cause and I know I’m not tied to anything in return. Even if there are promised perks, the structure doesn’t owe me anything, the perk is just a mean to thank me for my donation.

Again, it’s not the legal definition from my country (or maybe, I really don’t know), it’s just what those words means culturally here.

Also, using « buy » which implies a business relationship (even an illegal one) when the project is explicitly about freeing knowledge from businesses would be pretty ironic.

Tax collection, business licenses, etc

This is such a childish response to the comment. "wah if you criticize us go do your own thing we really dislike taking feedback" is absurdly naive.

On the one side, we have a group of people who have poured untold hours and cash into a project that provides almost no benefit to themselves, on the other side we have a group of people that stumble across said project and say "wah you should do things the way I want."

Which side seems childish?

I'm unsure what quoting that to me achieves? What are your thoughts on their approach to getting donations (monthly subscriptions)?

If you don't like their approach, you can host your own shadow library. It's all open source. :)

I can also discuss it here, as far as I'm aware.

They need to fund the operation somehow, if you think you can fund it without aggressively pushing for donations you're free to create your own library.

Why doesn't it sit right? Providing a higher level of service reward for those who support provides an incentive, yet those who do not support are no worse off than they already were.

What surprises me is the need for fast downloads. Books are small. 20 fast small downloads doesn't seem much of a reward.

That the first thing it says on every download page is a push to sign up for a monthly subscription. Then it continues with a push to refer friends to do the same.

From some testing there seems to be a built in delay, and then as some scanned books can easily be 20-100MB a download time of 5-10mins isn't uncommon. (I not complaining about this)

I support their goals of open access, FWIW.

edit: the call for people to run mirrors is interesting to see: https://annas-archive.org/mirrors

Anything else of value with exclusivity like an additional catalog or early-access would go against their stated goal.

So, I guess this is similar to buying official physical merchandise like t-shirt or mug at a higher than market price which they cannot ship (legally) due to the nature of their service. Both parties know that the benefit they get doesn't match the costs and it is about showing support.

>additional catalog or early-access

Yes, I wouldn't suggest or support anything like that.

One way this feels different to me is that while somewhere able to sell merchandise may have a range of items including some very expensive it generally wouldn't be suggesting I buy something every month and then offer an increasing % discount for paying 3/6/12/24 months up front.

There's an enormous difference between spreading stolen information for free or selling stolen information for profit. If you don't understand this, you have to investigate your moral compass a bit. There's a reason why purchasing stolen goods is a crime in most of the world.

Yeah, while governments indeed do not care too much about "piracy", this raises the threat that they will do something to stop it, and the punishment will be harsher.

See also : the recent shutdown by Nintendo of a Switch emulator, where they exploited the fact that it got crowdfunded (with specific rewards for bigger backers ?).

The free external providers work for a user who requires a small number of downloads.

I don't see an issue with charging users who would cause large amounts of traffic. It is a subscription model described as donations but this is common for many piracy sites.

How would you prefer it they collected more money?

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