The actual enshittification here is that readers used to be able to tell libraries what they wanted for free, and now this data is apparently an Advantage Plus(tm) premium feature that libraries need to pay for, so OverDrive can make more money.
Like, if they're missing that extremely basic thing, how can I trust they're not also missing big parts of the rest of the story?
If I write a blog post with deep analysis about NASA but start off with a rant about how they faked the moon landing and the moon is made of cheese you probably wouldn't trust the rest of my writing right?
And they act like Overdrive was free while Libby is charging, but Overdrive wasn't free before. There's no actual breakdown of the total costs of these two platforms, just some vague trust us its more expensive. Which I can't really trust a blog post of rumors without hard facts when the things I can check as hard facts are downright wrong!
Overdrive and Libby are two apps from the same company.
That company, Overdrive, has a monopoly and makes money charging libraries money to provide a service to that library's patrons for free.
The author is asking me to trust them about their research they did about some pricing change related to moving towards the Libby platform. They mention new subscriptions for libraries without actually sharing any of the actual pricing. Overdrive is going away, so whatever they were paying for Overdrive will go to $0.
These numbers are entirely made up and not in line with whatever they were paying, just showing an example of how this whole argument of a new subscription doesn't necessarily mean things are radically more expensive. So say Overdrive cost the library $100. Now there's this new platform Libby, which while in development and not feature-complete with Overdrive was just tacked on free or whatever. Now the Overdrive platform is being deprecated and will cease soon, so they announce the pricing structures for Libby, $75. Oh no, what used to be $100 is now $175, what an increase! Oh wait, we forgot, Overdrive is going away, so in the end the costs are actually only $75.
When the author can't track down the full story that Libby is available as a website it really reduces the trust I have that they actually figured out what the pricing models are as Overdrive goes away and Libby replaces it. I question if the author and their sources were even fully aware that Overdrive is fully going away soon, as that was only announced a few months ago. They never once actually shared "This was what the costs were with Overdrive, here is what the costs will be when its just Libby."
Maybe the overall costs are going up! I don't know either way. I definitely don't have deep insights on exactly how the pricing models worked in the past nor in the future as I have never worked for a library. It wouldn't surprise me that costs would go up in a period with somewhat high inflation. It would almost be news if the price didn't go up. In the end though, I can't really trust someone who didn't bother researching the first basic and easily verifiable facts they bring up in their writing.
Once again, if someone writes a post talking about specifics about NASA but starts off talking about how the moon landing was faked, would you trust the rest of their "trust me" writing?
You don't engage at all with the deeper underlying issue: we have a monopoly, owned by a notoriously unscrupulous private equity firm that holds control over the future of libraries.
Do you see how stupid it is to nitpick the article for not having access to pricing data, when the real concern here should be that the pricing is not publicly available?
The author freely admits they are not a professional journalist and what you are doing is gatekeeping that seems to serve no other purpose than to suppress a story that should be getting far more attention than it is. If you're concerned that other facts in this essay are off, (and they may well be, this is a solo essayist, not a professional journalist with a fact checker) then give them and hand, check other facts and send the author the information they missed.
A small detail that takes like 30 seconds to confirm if true or not that takes up like a quarter of their whole article.
> what you are doing is gatekeeping
About a quarter of their article is about this basic fact that takes almost zero effort to confirm or deny. Its not some deep hidden detail. I don't understand why you feel they need to hire a fact checker to figure out that libbyapp.com exists. I didn't realize expecting people to do more research than "ask random people on Mastodon" is gatekeeping journalism. Which this is all this essay is, someone shared their experiences misunderstanding how the new app works and then quoted a few random, unconfirmed sources off Mastodon.
And when you actually go look at their sources, it really begins to call in to question other premises of the story. The first person the author is quoting later says "I 'm not in the pipeline of ordering [from the old system]...or examining requests that were there" and other statements suggesting they never really directly used the library's side to Overdrive so they didn't really know what the old system was like. Hard to say the new system is worse than the old when you never really used the old one!
And then the librarian who wrote "this change is a real downgrade", their reason for why its a downgrade didn't make this blog post. Why not? Maybe because the reason why they felt that way was "For one, there is no way for libraries to see which patron clicked Notify Me for which title." Good! I don't necessarily want librarians to know "John Smith wants a copy of whatever", all they should know is that someone wants that book.
Then that whole idea that a library needs a subscription to see what was requested is also another misunderstanding. That Advantage program is only for libraries participating in a consortia, as the consortia is a shared pool of books. The Advantage program allows libraries participating in a consortia to have their own private Patron's Only section as well. But the author makes it sound like the only way for a library to know what books are being requested is by the Advantage program, which by their own sources isn't true!
> If you're concerned that other facts in this essay are off...then give them and hand, check other facts and send the author the information they missed.
I mean they pretty much just need to go to Overdrive's website and actually read the Mastodon toots (or whatever they're called) next to the ones they quoted and a number of their points will be shown to be incorrect. I'm not doing any more digging than what they already did and things that are very easily public information and I'm finding tons of glaring holes in their blog post.
> Do you see how stupid it is to nitpick the article for not having access to pricing data, when the real concern here should be that the pricing is not publicly available?
If their real concern was that we should have access to pricing data they should have actually included such a concept in their post, because they pretty much never do other than state libraries need to buy an Advantage subscription, which isn't true. Practically all of their post was about how they had to install the Libby app instead of using a website, that it took them a bit to understand how the "Notify Me" tag works despite there being help articles about it and the platform explaining it in the app, and then massively taking people on Mastodon out of context and leaving out key elements of their statements of if the new system is better or worse than the old and why.
It did make it into the blog post, it's literally the rest of the paragraph after that quote. I guess I can ignore everything else you're saying the to criticize the blog post because you made this one mistake.
> But the author makes it sound like the only way for a library to know what books are being requested is by the Advantage program, which by their own sources isn't true!
No, the author explicitly mention that the new change, read the paragraph above the paragraph where the Advantage Program is described.
> If their real concern was that we should have access to pricing data they should have actually included such a concept in their post, because they pretty much never do other than state libraries need to buy an Advantage subscription, which isn't true.
No the real concern, which you conveniently repeatedly fail to address, is that this is a monopoly, owned by a notoriously unscrupulous private equity firm, that holds the future of library patronage in its hands.
At this point, you're not adding any value to the discussion. You're just incorrectly nitpicking the article when you haven't bothered to read it closely enough to do so with any accuracy.
The whole round earth thing is just a basic thing I missed!
Flat Earthers aren't wrong about everything, after all.
Overdrive gave them something better than what they ever had, and then took it away. The libraries aren't left off worse than before.
Personally, I always search using the library catalog's web site, so this whole article is about a feature I never saw. I would encourage everyone search that way instead of directly on Overdrive.
I haven't looked up the numbers recently, but after a spike in ebook usage several years ago, the percentage dropped and I suspect continues to do so. Most people are over the hype and have returned to physical book usage.
But the feature still exists, so this is just untrue.
It doesn't. I used to be able to submit a request for printed and digital books, but my library stopped accepting those requests for digital books and (just as I commented elsewhere in this thread) now refers me to the Notify Me feature and Overdrive catalog (and if it's not in the catalog, I can't request it do be added).
If its not in the catalog requesting it from the library isn't really doing anything for you but give you false hope of it appearing. Wouldn't you rather know your request isn't going to be fruitful ahead of time instead of thinking your request is doing something when its just going straight into the bin?
And, can you really blame the library from not wanting to have to maintain two lists of digital requests, especially since those digital requests will probably be delivered through Libby and requesting through Libby will actually notify you when its available, and let you know if its an actually requestable title?
Imagine going to a restaurant where they didn't have a menu you just asked the server for food and maybe eventually they'll show up sometime with food for you without ever telling you if they could even serve that dish. Somehow you'd prefer this model!
> If its not in the catalog requesting it from the library isn't really doing anything for you but give you false hope of it appearing.
That's precisely the point. If it's not in the catalog, there has to be a way to request it to be added (assuming the publisher allows that), but right now there is no even a mechanism to do this, as there is no competition and the full control is on the Libby side to include or not include an item (without libraries having any say in it).
> without libraries having any say in it
You're assuming the libraries ever had a say in what Overdrive's catalog was. I can't imagine they ever did.
Some libraries probably presented a UI suggesting they could do it as their own combined catalog probably wasn't synced to whatever Overdrive's library was. But you're then assuming your request for a book that wasn't in the Overdrive library actually got to the point of notifying Overdrive, which is yet to be shown either way.
I doubt it did anything more than have a librarian check if the book was in the Overdrive catalog, and if not they probably just closed the ticket. And right now this idea has just as much evidence as yours.
Edit: Just saw my library does the same. Sad.