Link: https://twitter.com/Devon_Eriksen_/status/1772446997313671226

To summarize, this dude complains about Amazon's shitty payout policy towards audiobook authors, then proceeds to blame "soulless communists" (I guess he's talking about Amazon?) and reveal his bizarre an-cap brainworms. Using his own an-cap logic, since labor is a "voluntary exchange", why is he so upset about this I wonder?

  • charlie
    ·
    7 months ago

    Consumers like "Boston Matthew" probably think that authors are somehow getting paid out of his subscription fees.

    Nope.

    His subscription fees pay Audible, not authors. Authors get 20%, but only if he pays with money, for the individual purchase. If he pays with a "credit", well, no.

    Is this true of Libro.fm? If my monthly credit goes solely to the local trans bookstore I guess it’s better than Amazon, but I’d like authors to get some of that money too.

    Fuck, if all the money I’m paying for books and audiobooks just goes towards supporting the infrastructure to sell me that book and not the author then I don’t see any problem with pirating everything you get, and just donating some money to the author directly.

      • charlie
        ·
        7 months ago

        Definitely! Return to the patreon arts! The irony being capitalism provides a rent seeking vessel for that.

        • FumpyAer [any, comrade/them]
          ·
          7 months ago

          Honestly, patreon is the least evil version of capitalism besides like, Kofi, but there's a reason people pay for the extra features.

          • glans [it/its]
            ·
            7 months ago

            it would be cool if patreon workers got together to form collectives to share some portion of income and even to support less popular ones. I have never heard of anyone doing that even with some very massive left-type "creators". A voluntary rate of 3%-10% would make a good size pot.

            but what we really need is taxation and funding.

    • charlie
      ·
      7 months ago

      The reason Audible is such a great deal for Matthew is that it allows him all the benefits of stealing, without having to do any of the actual stealing himself... someone has already done it for him, and he doesn't even have to know. His conscience is clean unless he does a bunch of research he has no incentive to do. And why would he look into it? He doesn't even know there's anything to look into.

      walter-breakdown