Hacker News Reader

Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

I'd be very curious to know how many people here actually knew that Independent Bookstore Day was a thing before reading this headline.

I just checked the two independent bookstores nearest me and neither one of them has any mention of it in their online presence. I've been a frequent customer of independent bookstores for years and never heard about this before. There's no Wikipedia page and Google Trends tells me there's not enough data to even give me a search history for this.

It makes a great headline and I'm sure the people who organize it are annoyed, but this might just be a case of ant meet boot. It's weirdly reassuring for organizers to think that Amazon specifically targeted them, but it seems more likely that they just... didn't even know it was happening.

View on HN

Blackwing pencils produce a special edition every year that is only available in independent bookstores starting on Independent Bookstore Day. That’s how I knew about it.

Do you know if everyone listed on Blackwing’s store locator carries these? The closest to me isn’t a book store.

I buy plenty of books - 2x to 3x more than I can read - and I had no idea there was such a thing.

My local library had their seasonal used book sale last Thurs - Sat, but I sense that was simply coincidence.

Why do you buy more books than you can read? :)

The most valuable book in the world isn't the Gutenberg Bible or First Folio or signed Principia. It's the one you need at 2 o'clock in the morning but don't have.

Oh, so the answer to my original question is “hoarding”. Got it - fair enough, you do you.

I am aware of it and have been for more than a decade but… I only ever remember sometime after it’s passed. Every year. I’ll spot the leftover merch at my preferred bookstore the next time I’m there and go “Oh, right.”

Dedicated web page: https://www.indiebound.org/independent-bookstore-day

IIRC it started at about the same time as 'Indie Record Store Day'; both are on Saturdays in April.

I shop at brick-and-mortars for whatever I can, and very much regret those gone missing because of the Great Monopolist. I really valued being able to examine many products before purchase.

I'm on the mailing list for a couple of bookstores, so I knew. I bought something on Independent Bookstore Eve, but not on the day.

Well, now significantly more people know. Use Bookshop.org to buy books instead of Amazon, there's no real downside in my experience, and the quality/integrity of the books I get is much higher.

I just tried the first two titles I thought of on both.

Art of Electronics, Bookshop.org $128.70, Amazon $94.03 (list price $117)

SICP, Bookshop.org $90, Amazon $53.77 (list $75)

Both Amazon titles will be in my hands tomorrow for no additional shipping cost to me. Bookshop suggests that for SICP if I pay $8 extra, I can have it expedited (3-6 days) or for $9 extra can cut that to 3-5 days with priority, though there is a free shipping option available (with no timeframe indicated).

SICP comes up on Amazon when searching for “SICP”; it does not on Bookshop.org, so I need to search by the longer title.

In case “nerd books” is a particularly weak spot, I tried the first book on NYT Best Seller list, Perfect Divorce. Bookshop $28; Amazon $21 and they can have in my hand between 10 and 3 today.

As a consumer, I see at least two hard downsides (cost and speed) and one soft downside (selection/browsing ease).

You can try

Https://thriftbooks.com

Admittedly, they’re not Amazon fast. But using their Wish List scores me plenty of great deals on things I don’t need ASAP.

Pro tip: For used stick to Like New and Very Good. I’ve had bad luck with Good, and have never tried below that.

Thanks! That site is far more competitive than Bookshop.org and is in the neighborhood of Amazon price-wise on 2/3 of those titles.

  Amazon   Thriftbooks   Bookshop.org   Title
  $94.03     $94.52         $128.70       Art of Electronics
  $53.77     $89.49         $ 90.00       Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
  $20.98     $22.97         $ 27.89       Perfect Divorce

Betterworldbooks is also very good for used books especially textbooks but more generically anything

Amazons worst contribution to the world was leaving people with the expectation that they need to have 2 day shipping for every single item they purchase. The climate impact alone is insane.

In most cases where I choose Amazon for shipping speed reasons the alternative I'm considering is making a special trip to a brick and mortar store by car. I don't know how to do the math to figure out which of those is worse for the climate, but Amazon is definitely not strictly worse.

By focusing on local maxima you’re ignoring that both of the behaviors you’ve described, on a societal scale, are terrible for the environment. Sure, it’s on Amazon or Exxon or whatever other company at the end of the day. But it’s individual human behavior that gives companies the impetus and the air cover to destroy the planet. But like so many other things, humanity, and especially Westerners, won’t learn these lessons until they’re on the doorstep.

Sure, I'm fine to focus on the individual human behavior, but that's a completely different argument than your original post made. To review that comment:

> Amazons worst contribution to the world was leaving people with the expectation that they need to have 2 day shipping for every single item they purchase. The climate impact alone is insane.

Here you're very clearly not discussing "individual human behavior that gives companies the impetus and the air cover to destroy the planet", you're directly blaming Amazon for creating high expectations for delivery times.

Your argumentation here feels like a motte and bailey to me. You attack Amazon for offering 2-day shipping because that's bad for the environment, I point out that the alternative that I would have used in the pre-Amazon world likely wasn't any better, you retreat into a more general attack on large-scale societal problems stemming from individual human behaviors.

I engaged with your bailey and found it lacking. I don't disagree with your motte, but that's not the conversation we were having.

I think it's entirely fair to point out that Amazon often wins on price and speed.

One question I've been asking myself lately: are single to maybe double digit price optimizations on books such a dominant concern that I should prioritize them over other values?

For an activity I have to do daily, maybe. That order of savings on meals adds up fast enough to be a triple digit number in a month.

Book purchases are weekly to monthly events, any savings on the order that amazon can give me tends toward a rounding error in a monthly budget. Or if my budget shrinks to the point they're not and I need to conserve funds that badly, I will use a library system.

Speed is nice but it's rarely crucial (and these days publishers themselves can get it in your hands pretty quickly).

Lots of us software engineers know "premature optimization is the root of all evil" -- when you overoptimize early, you commit resources in particular attention towards optimizations you may not know serve your ultimate goals.

Maybe your goals begin and end with getting the book in your hand at the lowest price in the shortest time period.

Maybe your goals include what kinds of businesses, activity, people and therefore society you support economically.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com