Item — HN Reader

> A new novel, for example, might require twenty dollars for its first price—and ten hours of dedicated reading time for its second. Only once the second price is being paid do you see any return on the first one. Paying only the first price is about the same as throwing money in the garbage.

I think this is a bit too much of an absolutist take. One that turns too many people off from reading, and can add an unnecessary air of elitism around it. If you pay $14.99 for a book, you aren't seeing returns only after ten hours of dedicated reading. Even reading one chapter can yield returns that are equivalent to $14.99, if it's a good book. With non-fiction, you can also pick chapters that strike you as the most interesting and start directly from those, getting faster 'returns on investment'. Then going back and reading the whole thing if you're sucked in.

It's very common for sites to publish curated segments of books, whether were talking science related things or not. And even getting double the amount of that text by purchasing the book (compared to the short excerpt) can be worth the price of admission.

3 comments

I think the article is less making a comment on “how many hours of time you need to put into reading before it’s worth the monetary cost you laid down for it”.

I think it’s trying to remind people that before you get the utility you wanted out of a (non-decorative) book, you need to pay not just ($14.99), but ($14.99 + 10 hours), or indeed ($14.99 + 1 hour).

I understood the article to encourage more thoughtful budgeting of that second kind of cost, and that we are tuned to automatically mostly consider the first kind of cost.

But sometimes you want to fill time, as it were. You might buy a paperback before getting on an airplane so that you have a boom to read, not because you care about the contents.

I’d go further for the specific example of the book. For me the price of reading a good book isn’t a price at all. It’s a gain. I’ve paid the first up front price to be able to read the book and gain enjoyment from it.

I get that there are different reasons for reading a book, but even then, it also seems overly simplistic and absolutist to me.

For a lot of people, they are just paying $20 to have the book. It makes them feel nice through the act of purchase or building a collection. Or maybe it provides a safety blanket if you might need it one day, but no need to read it right now. That's a good deal for them.