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Wahots ,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

They cap the time you can listen to something on a paid subscription? Lmao, their podcasts already suck and are annoying to navigate, and tend to get mixed between music in the UI. Can I pay money to just have a music service?

Also, ebooks and audio books are digital, so any caps (like data caps) are entirely arbitrary.

conciselyverbose ,

They don't own the books. Even as a dominant market force in audiobooks, the best Amazon can do is one book credit a month and a small mediocre library of content they do actually own.

Spotify doesn't have the capability to get licensing that allows for unlimited access.

phillaholic ,

Seriously, people need to stop complaining about absolutely everything. It’s so tiring. This is something no one was paying for yesterday. Audible is what? $15 a month for one book?

conciselyverbose , (edited )

They do have a library of stuff they own or license, too, though I personally am not interested in much of it. It's worth mentioning that some of it involves reasonable investment with celebrity readers or more expensive production. (I can't stand any of that. A second reader for different chapters is tolerable; more is not.)

It's 36 for 3 credits after that, with occasional sales of two specific titles for one credit or discounts on cash price. I'm not sure how they structure their actual deals with publishers, but I am reasonably sure that they're leveraging their market position hard to sell some of those books at those prices, because they're way less than anywhere else including other formats.

15 hours makes the whole "we include audiobooks in your subscription" to be a pretty token service, though. That's not that much time.

There is at least one actual subscription audiobook service that is close to unlimited* and has a decent library (though it's older and less known content, and discoverability it pretty bad). I've found several series I've read 10-20 books in a row of a month through scribd. (I can provide a referral for a free trial on request. Not trying to advertise though). I'm guessing Spotify is going for high profile stuff, though, and that costs more.

*How it works is that certain publisher deals will only let you listen to a certain number from an author or in a series in a month, then you have to wait until the next month for the rest. But you can still access the rest of their library.

phillaholic ,

I have no idea about the economics of audiobooks personally, I am more of a short form reader, so when I do read a book, I bought it used for a couple bucks off eBay or from a local used book store. I am far from the target market for audiobooks.

conciselyverbose , (edited )

I think the biggest issue with audiobooks is all the extra people it takes. An author does most of the work on a book, and while advances do exist, they're mostly established authors who already have a known audience. Ultimately, they make money if a book sells. Obviously printing isn't free, but it's not crazy and doesn't scale up costs that much.

An audiobook still pays the author, but it also has a bunch of extra up front costs. You need a sound studio, you need a narrator, and you need audio mastering. All of these cost good money up front, the costs scale up with length. The 45 hour Brandon Sanderson Way of Kings is going to cost a lot more to make than a short 5 hour beach read, and because of the length inherently have lower floors and ceilings on volume than something shorter. You need to charge more to the enthusiasts who want that content to offset the extra costs. I'm honestly not sure if Amazon is using those as a loss leader knowing that those readers usually read a lot of books, or if they're bullying the publishers into giving them a discount, but either way I don't think anyone else can afford it.

phillaholic ,

Yea, and podcasts usually have better production. I guess ads are that lucrative idk.

conciselyverbose ,

Podcasts have minimal writing and terrible production. Even the insanely well developed ones are obscenely cheaper per hour than a halfassed audiobook.

phillaholic ,

There are some scripted podcasts with more enthusiastic narration, background music, etc than some audiobooks I’ve listened to. I thought Walter Isaacson‘s recording on his Dell podcast was better than one of his books from a few years back.

dawnerd ,
@dawnerd@lemm.ee avatar

No body was asking for it either. Now they have a reason to raise prices. And they will.

phillaholic ,

Maybe, but they have two major competitors that they need to stay around the cost of.

unix_joe ,
@unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Spotify Premium pays Joe Rogan.

_edge ,

Europe?

Thalestr ,
@Thalestr@beehaw.org avatar

15 hours/month is… pretty awful. An avid reader (or listener, in this case) will chew through that in no time at all. Another thing that concerns me is payouts. Spotify is notorious for having atrocious payouts to creators. I wonder how this carries over to their audiobook offerings.

Sharpiemarker ,

Yep, just looking through my collection of audiobooks, and most are about 10 hours long.

conciselyverbose , (edited )

8-12 are my lighter reads. Some of my favorites are 25-30.

I do do double speed, so I wonder if that ticks twice as fast on there. But 15 hours a month is pretty bad.

Edit: I just got an email from audible. I've listened to ~20900 minutes (348 hours) in 9 months (38.5/month) on there this year, and I've used Scribd and Libby way more. Obviously I'm not typical, and supporting me isn't reasonable. But since they sent that the same day I made this post I thought I'd add it.

joemo ,

Knowing Spotify, I would assume it’s 15 hours of book regardless of speed listened.

conciselyverbose ,

There's also the possibility that they're the only service out there that doesn't let you control playback speed. Or that they take the most restrictive of playback speed and length of book so people who listen at slowed down speed are screwed too

Resolved3874 ,

Yeah when I’m driving a lot for work I could burn through that in 2 days…and not even be able to finish out the second day before I have to change to something else 😂

Another reason to make me glad I setup audiobookshelf.

bug ,

It’s a free trial. I don’t know why everyone’s so shocked, they’re essentially giving you one or two free books in the hope that you’ll be hooked and want to pay for more!

Thalestr ,
@Thalestr@beehaw.org avatar

Technically not free if you have to have a paid sub in order to access them. In that case it’s a paid trial with the opportunity to pay even more. Which sounds even worse for Spotify.

bug ,

Technically yes, but if you’re already paying for the thing you actually wanted then it’s essentially a free trial on top of that

Granixo ,
@Granixo@feddit.cl avatar

Oh look, a paid subscription post! I shall take a detour from these salty black waters! 🏴‍☠️

https://feddit.cl/pictrs/image/dffc2dff-e7b1-4c45-9790-459c4d27d5b7.jpeg

beefcat ,
@beefcat@beehaw.org avatar

pirates are the pushy vegans of the internet

adam ,
@adam@kbin.pieho.me avatar

As a vegan, and a pirate, I approve this message.

SugarApplePie ,
@SugarApplePie@beehaw.org avatar

For anyone interested in this news, don’t forget to check out your local library. If you’re in the US there’s a good chance that your library card will also give you access to online audiobooks for free!

SmashingSquid ,

If your library has hoopla you can get ebooks, music, tv shows, movies, comics, and magazines too. Unfortunately doesn’t work with ereaders for the ebooks.

acastcandream ,

Hoopla is the greatest

conciselyverbose ,

Libby only supports kindle.

Both do support Android, though. There are Android ereaders available, and while they're mostly Chinese companies I don't personally trust much, low powered for tablets, and old Android with minimal support in terms of upgrades, I personally think the trade off is worth it compared to how limited your choices on proprietary readers are. I wouldn't put confidential documents on them, but I also probably wouldn't trust Amazon with that either.

NiklzNDimz ,
@NiklzNDimz@beehaw.org avatar

^ The Libby app works great for audiobooks, too!

conciselyverbose ,

My library also supports Hoopla, which is a limited number of borrows per month, with instant availability. The catalogue is probably lesser, but it's different so adds options.

PonyOfWar ,

Sounded great at first, but 15 monthly hours is pretty terrible TBH. Not even an hour a day?

Ethereal87 ,
@Ethereal87@beehaw.org avatar

And if you listen at 1.5x speed, does that just burn your 15h faster or can you fit in more time?

It’s an interesting idea, but I think the only way I’d use it is a “try before you buy” and go out to Libro to make the purchase. At least that’s the only way I could realistically see using 15h/month.

GunnarRunnar ,

It’s what. A book, maybe book and a half per month? Like cool that it’s an option but it’s not really something makes a difference for me.

acastcandream ,

That’s half an hour a day. Most people are not going to rip through that. Sure you and I would, but most people that’s probably adequate.

KaijuKoala ,

This is fantastic news! 😁

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