Audible Subscriptions and Kindle Unlimited

If I spend 12 CHF per month on Netflix or 23 per year on CuriosityStream I think little of it. I expect to watch films and TV series once, and then to forget about them. With books and music I feel differently. With books I feel that it is worth paying for Unlimited if I read more than two books per month. With Audible.com the story is a little different. When every book is 25 USD or more, it makes more sense to pay for the subscription.

Audible Subscriptions, and Kindle Unlimited both have the same advantage, or almost. They allow you to borrow books and listen to them, and if you don’t like them, you can return them, without it costing you. In effect you can do the same if you spend a token, and return the book. Credit is returned and you can choose another book. In effect you borrowed a book, rather than bought it.

I suspect, since a few days that Kindle Unlimited will see Audible.com phased out. If we can buy, and borrow audiobooks straight from Amazon.com, there is no reason for us to use Audible.com.

Books Temporarily Available

I noticed that on Audible some books are temporarily available, so you have to finish reading them before you run out of time. When time runs out you have to buy the book for one credit. If you’re attentive to availability you can read quite a few books for “free”. You’re paying for access, but you’re given choice.

The Case for Subscribing Rather than Buying

Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and other vendors want you to buy books, but they don’t want you to own them. They want to have the right to revoke the license anytime for any reason, and plenty of people, including me, don’t like that. If I pay for a book I consider that I own it. If I don’t own it, then I refuse to spend 25 CHF per book, or more.

Subscription

With Audible Plus, and Audible Premium Plus, and with Kindle Unlimited you’re not paying for individual books. You’re paying for access to the library. As long as you pay for access to the library, you have access to the books, and once you stop, you’re locked out.

That’s why, if you read more than two books per month, it’s worth paying for, but a waste of money if you don’t.

Kindle Unlimited – Audio and Kindle

Recently, out of curiousity I borrowed a book via Kindle Unlimited, both as audio and as text. I can listen to the book, while I’m cooking, or walking, and I can read when I’m in bed, or in another environment. It will automatically resume the audio version where I stopped reading. This is nice, for people who like to combine the too.

And Finally

It makes sense for Amazon, owner of Audible, to encourage us to ‘borrow’ books, rather than ‘own’ them. If we pay for monthly access to an entire library, rather than individual books, then they can revoke access and we’re less angry, than if we had bought a book, and then had it confiscated.

In the past, I found that I wanted to buy more than 12 books per year, but that I couldn’t read 24 books per year, so I downgraded my plan. Now, with audible plus, and premium plus, which I have not tried yet, we have access to plenty of books. The credit system is still great, for when we want to get recently released books.

As a person who likes to have more books than I can read, it makes sense to borrow, rather than buy books. In an age of license revocation it makes sense not to buy e-books. They discouraged us from buying books, with their freedom to confiscate some books, and erase our library if their companies go bankrupt.