Comment on Cory Doctorow New Book: Enshitification

• EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It existed in the 90s and early 00s

  I was around in the 90s and early 00s and I can assure you it very much did not. The popularity of audiobooks grew significantly in the 90s. Books on tape had been a thing for awhile already and the popularity of audiobooks on CD exploded in the early to mid 90s. You could buy or even rent them from music stores, libraries, video stores, even supermarkets. They even had little listening stations where you could hear the first chapter of popular books before buying them.

  In 1995 Audible was founded and brought about the advent of digital audiobooks downloaded from the internet which only accelerated their popularity. By the time the 00s started audiobooks were a multi billion dollar industry.

  doesn’t mean that they don’t remember a time when it wasn’t more popular than just reading.

  Well that’s also a misunderstanding of the history of Audiobooks because I believe even now I don’t believe audiobooks are more popular than reading physical books.

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  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I’m just puzzled… I mean yeah, no shit, people read books out loud all of the fucking time, particularly before literacy became so common.

    But what is the point? What is it that you actually thought I meant with my previous comment? That oral tradition didn’t exist in the 90s?

    Because it seems like that’s the point you’re arguing against.

    I thought it was pretty clear that I meant more people tended to read than listen to audio books in the 90s.

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    • EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I thought it was pretty clear that I meant more people tended to read than listen to audio books in the 90s.

      More people tend to read than listen to audio books today. Despite that audiobooks are very popular today. They were also very popular in the 90s and 00s. So I guess I’m still wondering what exactly your point is? Having books read to you is popular today, it was popular in the 00s, it was popular in the 90s, it was popular 200 years ago, it was popular 2,000 years ago, etc.

      There was no point during your lifetime nor OPs lifetime that reading books was some kind of weird or not normal thing like OPs original comment implied.

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  • MalMen@masto.pt ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    @EncryptKeeper @prole I didnt understood the last parte, you are saying that audiobooks are not more popular than reading but more people listen to audiobooks than reading?

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    • EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      More people don’t listen to audiobooks than reading today. But there was never “A time where books were for reading [as opposed to listening to]”

      People have been listening to books for millennia. And before books they were listening to the things we now put in books. If you go back far enough more people did listen to books more than read them. And if we reach that point again, it won’t be some “newfangled idea” it would just be something we’ve done for thousands of years becoming very popular again.

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