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Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

I wish that they'd do this for books. The biggest thing keeping me from buying more ebooks is that they're usually the same price as the physical book - and, in some cases, more expensive than the physical book.

At that price, I'd just as soon buy the physical copy.

On the other hand, it would be nice to know that, when I buy a physical copy, I also have access to a digital version if needed. In the case of technical books, which I reference only occasionally (but need very immediately when I do reference them), it would be perfect.

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More than likely, given the option to buy an ebook for $x or a physical book with the addition of the ebook for 1.5*$x, I would probably spend the extra money for the option.

As would I. The benefit of having a physical copy of a book is tangible (pardon the pun). I can't lend ebooks to friends, but I can physical copies.

In the UK one of the reasons that digital copies don't come with books is that if they did that it would mean that it's now VAT chargeable. Books normally don't have VAT but digital goods do.

I would imagine they would give the digital good away for free, and add it as a separate line-item in checkout, so vat would be 15% of $0.

I simply don't understand applying a value added tax to digital goods. The marginal cost of production for digital goods is near zero. That means that the value added is near zero.

Already own the physical book? Pirate the ebook.

I know where you're coming from and i don't cast any aspersions on the activity - some ebook implementations just suck and you're infinitely better with the pirate version even if you've already paid for the "real" version.

Wanted to mention O'Reilly though - for $5 and a note of the ISBN number off the back of your book you get the ebook in whatever format you desire, can re-download it as many times as you want in whatever formats, and it'll automatically sync to dropbox.

I've been stocking up on them - it does work really well. I get to carry about all my books (well, not quite), with notes and highlights and i only need to keep physical copies of the books i refer to most often. It's been a bit of a revelation for me.

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