I understand that books needs to be financed but why should we deprive the poorest from accessing culture knowing that marginal cost of ebooks is zero.
We should incentivize reading books not making it harder or more expensive.
- E-books should be free and of easy access.
- Writers and editors should be paid according to the popularity of their work.
Not OP, but their suggestions, ebooks free AND paid according to the popularity, are already implemented and working excellently on royalroad. All stories on royalroad are free and some popular authors make over $10000 a month from patreon donations.
OK, but is that viable on a large scale or will only the top 1%-10% be able to make a living. Though to be fair, the current situation probably isn't much better.
> why should we deprive the poorest from accessing culture
Because "culture" isn't something that anyone is entitled to. It's not a human right. And because if you, joak, want to help provide culture to the poor, then you can personally spend your own time and effort producing a work of culture.
Taking a work of effort made by someone else, and giving it away for free, when that person did not consent, is theft. It has nothing to do with the "marginal cost of ebooks" - it's the fact that you don't have the right to someone else's work.
Again - if you want to provide culture to the poorest, then you can either (1) purchase a work of art from an author and give it to an individual, or (2) you can invest your own effort into creating your own work of culture.
Where would the money come from? Who would decide how popular a book is? I agree that in theory these are not incompatible statements, but I fail to see a practical way to make it work.
We should incentivize reading books not making it harder or more expensive.
- E-books should be free and of easy access.
- Writers and editors should be paid according to the popularity of their work.
The proposals are not incompatible.