(2025-09-26) Sloan This is How E-books Should Work

Robin Sloan's latest print-zine is titled: This is How E-books Should Work. (And/or "Information technology should aspire to the speed & privacy of the printed page.") “Twenty-five years into a digital century, and the e-books are dismal.” Also refers to (2025-05-01) Sloan Zine Reality Has a Surprising Amount of Detail.

Goodness, I disagree with almost all of it.

Ah, it's sold out. So I won't feel bad about quoting it. (The first thing I did was scan/ocr the text so I could read it in MoonReader, my ebook reader!)

Physical books-hereafter, "books" (printed book)-are useful machines refined over many centuries. My argument is that e-books must, at minimum, meet the standard they set. (No, could be slightly worse in some ways, while much better in others. Which is where we are today already, I think.)

The Standard:
E-books must match the speed, privacy, and reliability of the printed page.

The book loads instantly! (Once it's in your hand. And you get it once you go to the bookstore, vs downloading instantly.)

Human life is now surveilled from every angle: state, corporation, doorbell. One space that remains totally private is the one inside your head. Because of the way text works in the mind, the book-distinct from other media-has always defended and enriched this space

Together, these properties suggest a deep reliability: book as capable, trust-worthy ally. The counterexample is digital media. A licensing deal expires, so a title vanishes. Not if you download it and strip DRM.

E-books must permit sharing, including resale.
E-books must permit sharing, but we'd like that sharing to work the way it does for a physical book, not a pirated movie. More on this later. If a pirate I must be....

E-books must support, rather than erode, the vitality of bookstores.
I dream of e-books that actually bring people into bookstores. A contradiction?
No, just a challenge.* That smells like scope-creep, which always results in bad designs.

We are NOT going to make an app!
No bespoke app will be available and operable in twenty years-it is absolutely inconceivable.

Likewise, for the sake of speed and privacy, we will require no user accounts, offer no virtual shelves.

The Model
It's so simple, it's barely anything at all:
We give every copy of our book a tether to a uniquely-identified e-book. Right now, a QR code is the best way to do this. (Browser Based Ebook Reader)

This e-book is uniquely identified, and each copy of this zine links to just one. Let's pause to appreciate that this is only recently possible. (print customization technology)

This e-book is a web page, accessible at a URL. In our attempt to match the reliability of the book, we use the most ubiquitous formats available. So there is an app, just on someone else's computer? That's better? Who runs that computer? The publisher? The author? A BigTech? Actually, a shame we lost Google Book Search....

This e-book does not track its reader, but it does account for its own use, and imposes limits. Is this server-side?

The e-book associated with this zine-this particular copy, here in your hands-can be accessed 100 times, which is a number that floats between scales: more than you'll ever need, even if you circulate the zine among friends, but not enough to support internet distribution. (piracy)

*The e-book also notes where in the world it's being accessed, and it can only "travel" at 1,000 mph or less.
Isn't it absurd to impose these physical limitations on digital media? For a long time, I thought so... and I now believe I was wrong.

The limitations of the physical are productive and fun: so why not simulate them, just as eagerly as video game programmers simulate glinting reflections, leaping plumbers? Fun? I don't want

Now: if the physical book is the avatar of the e-book, it means you buy e-books at the same place you buy physical books. You buy them at the bookstore. I should say: the physical book can be the avatar of the e-book.... and other physical objects can fill that role, too. A publisher might offer e-books accessed through letterpress cards, strange amulets, action figures-anything that can carry a QR code or an NFC tag. And where do you buy those things? Same as before: the bookstore. (How about online, and skip the printed book? You don't think the "publisher" will want both?)

This model produces e-books that are much more liberal-permit many more readers-than the e-books offered by digital platforms today. Culturally, that's welcome; commercially, it's sustainable. Sharing is no threat when it's buffered by productive frictions.

don't get too caught up in adversarial spy games, because the reality is, if media can be displayed on a screen, it can be copied and circulated. Sane limits guide readers of good will towards sustainable behavior, so our overriding goal is: the defense and enlargement of that good will.

From the point of view of a media corporation or a digital platform, my model for e-books is risky-misguided-indefensible in fiduciary terms-because it surrenders too much "value". And to whom is that value surrendered? The reader, of course, who is also an owner, possibly a customer and no longer a user.

So, we'll go on ahead, without the corporations and the platforms. Who's this "we"?*

See semi-related (2018-12-21) Mod The Future Book Is Here But It's Not What We Expected