서브스크립션 전자책 서비스의 경제학적 원리

최근 24symbols, oyster 등 해외 서브스크립션 전자책 서비스 모델이 속속 등장하고 있다. 이들의 경제학적 논리는 어떤지 분석한 글이다. sptify 등 음원 서비스에선 이미 자리매김이 확실히 된 모델인데 전자책에선 어떨지 궁금하다.

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How the Economics of Ebook Subscription Services Work

Categories: Expert Publishing Blog | Tags: ebook subscription service, oyster, spotify
November 15, 2012 | Justo Hidalgo | 5

   

 

  

I must say I was quite surprised when I read Andrew Rhomberg’s article at Digital Book World talking about the economics of a subscription service for ebooks. I hold Andrew in high esteem and we’ve had the chance to spend some time discussing about publishing and startups in different cities around Europe. In fact, I disagreed so much with the post that I needed to read it a few times just in case I was the one missing the point.

Summarizing, Andrew starts by showing survey data about how UK readers would react to a subscription service. Basically, they’d go for it, but paying what people are already used to doing at other subscription services, like Spotify or Netflix. Quite intuitive, but it’s good to see surveys supporting it. Andrew then does some math to apparently show that no subscription service with those prices can ever be accepted by publishers nor authors as it would go against their interest. He shows how a Big Six publisher (a big publisher from UK or US) would not make much money from those consumers. And how a small publisher would make even less.

I fully disagree with how the math leads to the conclusions, and this is my respectful response. As a disclaimer, I am co-founder of 24symbols, a freemium-based subscription service for ebooks. But my analysis, except for a specific piece mentioned below, is agnostic with respect to specific business models.

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http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/how-the-economics-of-ebook-subscription-services-work/