Why are YBW article-downloads so damned expensive??

[obmij]

I have bought one article for £7. I wouldn't say it was value for money and wouldn't buy another at that price.

I have been looking for a boat for over 12 months now and my interest has been piqued by many different models. I guess I would have bought 30 odd articles already - just in the search for 1 boat.

At a reasonable price I would have indulged a little dreaming too.

It is so easy to go off at tangents when looking for a boat - there must be thousands of different makes and models out there, so many variables, and so many articles have been written about them by the esteemed scribes of YM. Some models will have been covered several times, new, used, as part of group tests etc

All very interesting to the intrepid boat hunter and all very purchasable at the right price point.

 

[Neil]

I also bought one article, once I'd almost decided on a particular boat. I paid the money, but when I read the article I was completely underwhelmed. I found it light and superficial and I learned nothing that I hadn't already read on the web. Had it been £1, I'd have shrugged and hoped for a better one next time. The boat had been written about 3 times but I didn't buy another.

 

[Greenheart]

♫ Here we are again...happy as can be...

Just occurred to me, how many old copies of PBO, YM and YW there must be in attics and garages around the country...

...and how easily articles might be hauled out, scanned, and emailed between forum-contributors, free: shared in effect...

...think of the good-fellowship that would be propagated, at this very convivial time of year! Who knows, it might even endure beyond New Year! At some point IPC would pull out their finger and start offering their version of the service, at a reasonable rate...

Ah well. Back to the land of dreams...

 

[prv]

The real problem on the intellectual property rights front is that for many articles the ownership will be fragmented, and in some cases the copyright owners may not be traceable.
[...]
Frankly, in some cases I'd say it simply wasn't worth-while.

Well, they're solving this problem somehow, because the articles are online.

We're not asking them to provide a new service. We're merely suggesting that they reconsider the pricing structure of a service that has been around for years.

Any objections based on how hard it "would be" to provide the service are moot, because the service is already being provided.

Pete

 

[Seven Spades]

What they need to do is study this:-