cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/questions/p/1330162/why-do-american-authors-who-advocate-for-noble-causes-keep-their-books-behind-paywalls-i
That one thing that keeps puzzling me.
it feels weird when an American author keep giving media interviews talking about the cause they are advocating for and keep referencing their paywalled book.
Why do they not at least release the book for free after say a certain period(say 3 months) to advance their cause beyond their existence.
I had seen this phenomenon with American politicians, people important in technology and even feminists and social advocates.
Why?
We need to ban questions from people bad at thinking
Probably because they want to make money.
Same reason you (and/or others) ostensibly preach the same/similar noble causes online, but you don’t refuse a paycheck either: you have bills to pay. So do they.
money, duh…
They like to eat and pay bills.
is this a strictly American thing or just a people who write books for a living thing?
Get a library card, beep.
“library card” doesn’t magically make me get all the books that I want.
I currently just follow MIT open books and DOAB for interesting books.
Money does. Congratulations, you now understand why everybody needs to get paid.
You think they are a good writer and should continue to write. Doing so full time only works if they can monetize it. If they have some primary source of major income, sure I guess. But if writing is how they feed their family, that’s just the way it goes. My plumber is a bit of a socialist philosopher, doesn’t mean he comes and does all the work for free.
Not just a 'Murica thing, people write extensive literature of many types and ask for money. Some take a strict buy-then-read, some do more akin to the usual open source model of give and ask later.
I rather like the approach of give, ask for donations, and then also sell some physical special version in nice bindings or similar.
This is true, but it really is left up to the author because sometimes the writing of the material itself could take a multitude of years. Why do you think AI companies want to steal all of it rather than support those who actually create? It’s hard to make and takes a long time.
Because we all toil under capitalism, and are forced to use money to survive.
