MediaLoper and TeleRead have very intelligent discussions about the imminent demise of Nook Sharing.
Media Loper clarifies that ‘an ebook can be lent only once’ -
To be clear, the LendMe feature is extremely limited. Books are lent for a maximum of 14 days. And unlike the library, there are no extensions.
When a book is lent, the lender loses access, and once the book is returned to the lender it can never be lent again
He also thinks publishers are scared of a sense of customer entitlement and blind to the viral nature of books. He actually goes ahead and asks the question on everyone’s mind -
Will Publishers succeed in crippling the Nook?
There’s some indication that publishers already have succeeded in crippling the Nook. When B&N announced the LendMe feature it was claimed that Nook books could be loaned an unlimited number of times (though not simultaneously).
He then rather unfairly claims that Kindle’s Read To Me Feature has been killed and Nook Sharing is going the same way.
TeleRead also feel that Publishers might end up crippling the Nook. The comments are interesting – some people are already beginning to use the demise of LendMe as a reason to start pirating ebooks.
Which leaves us with a different question -
Are Publishers Right to Kill Nook Lending?
My view of the Nook Sharing feature was that there is no way it makes sense for Publishers.
Why would they go backwards?
Medialoper has said that Publishers are scared of customer entitlement and the value perception of ebooks and they should be.
Here’s why -
- Read the TeleRead comments saying that limiting Lending of eBooks means piracy is justified.
- Read the comments in forums where people want ebooks cheaper than paperbacks while available at the same time as hardcovers.
- The fact that music and software (a lot of it) is available free means customers do have a sense of entitlement.
What customers would like is to get books for free. However, on the Internet free is not what is used to be.
The Hidden Truth about Free
The Internet is encouraging a different sort of debt – with Facebook, Social Gaming companies, etc. that track user behavior and run targeted advertising, customers are basically saying they’d rather pay some unknown price down the line than pay upfront.
A great example are virtual games where $800,000 of sweet potato seeds get sold in 3-4 days.
Free Game upfront and then get people addicted and make a fool out of them later. That seems to be the new way to tap into customer greed.
Players on the Facebook game FarmVille have created 40 million farms. That’s 20 times the number of actual farms in the USA.
That is what the new Free is leading to – not some glorious Golden Age of the Customer as proponents of Free would like us to believe. No. It’s tens of millions of people working on virtual farms and paying $5 a pop for virtual sweet potato seeds.
Publishers will lose out to Companies intent on exploiting Readers
Publishers have neither the set-up nor the inclination to milk their readers for the rest of their lives in return for free books.
So Publishers become the bad guys.
Readers ought to understand that they’re getting $9.99 ebooks. Prices will only go lower if a company goes Evil and decides to subsidize ebooks in return for exploiting us down the line.
The more you see reality the more you realize what direction this is headed in - readers selling all their personal information for free ebooks.
Does a lack of Nook Lending cripple the Nook?
Actually, it does.
Whatever delightful innuendo B&N were hoping to facilitate by letting people lend ebooks to each other on their Nooks goes out the window.
So does the value of the #1 feature they have been promoting.
Not a single newspaper article singing the praises of Nook Lending has mentioned -
- That Publishers can turn it off.
- That you can lend an ebook a grand total of once.
Let’s see if newspapers and the big blogs keep drumming up a Nook LendMe feature that is a hollow shell of what actual lending of books is.
Filed under: Barnes Noble Nook | Tagged: lack thereof, nook sharing
