Social impacts the dot-com bubble had without us noticing.

[leahbobet]

Dear Author reports that Amazon has filed for a patent to insert advertising into POD and e-books. Books that included advertisements would be sold for a lower rate than books without. There are, predictably, the beginnings of outrage stirring in the comments.

What I find interesting here, though?

We have, socially, reached a point where major corporations accept implicitly that in order to get you in the same room as advertising, they have to blackmail you. And they attempt to account for that base assumption in their business plans.

It's no longer a social given that advertising is the price you pay for the intake of media anymore.

That's...pretty sweet.

Comments

[rosefox]

I wonder how the market will deal with this. Right now, books without ads are "normal" and books with them are "cheap", but you know Amazon would love for books with ads to be "normal" so books without them can be "premium" and sold at ridiculously jacked-up prices.

It is, meanwhile, only a matter of time until someone figures out how to make AdBlock for the Kindle.