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Comment by parineum | Hacker News Reader

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parineum·

> People also can't afford books. Reading has always been a pastime of the wealthy.

Maybe if you're buying brand new hardcovers. Maybe.

You can get used paper backs for cheap, and frequently for free. Plus, libraries exist.

What a bizarre point to make.

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Not really. You're underestimating how poor many people are. Even transport to a library can be a problem for some. And reading itself is a metabolic activity that takes work.

The poor obviously do read, but wealthy people have significantly more time and energy for the hobby, meaning that they read more.

I think you're underestimating how rich people most people are for the purposes of this discussion. The amount of people who would read but for funds is negligible. People spend their money on tons of useless absurd things every day. Money is not a main factor of the phenomenon of reading less.

I agree that it may not be the main factor but it's definitely a major one.

By the numbers wealthy people almost universally own and read more books. For a number of reasons.

If transport costs to a library are the limiting factor here, that's a person who's also unlikely to be able to responsibly buy other forms of entertainment though. Say it costs $10 transport to the library (probably an overestimate), and you go once a month to return old books and get new books, that's cheaper than a month's subscription to most streaming platforms. The only comparable form of entertainment (I'm excluding things like running for obvious reasons) I can think of that may be cheaper is video games, assuming you have a computer that can play at least more basic ones or are content with phone games.

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