As a user of audible, I do follow some authors but I've found better luck following certain voice actors. It's almost like the voice actor is the critic, and by narrating a story they are recommending it to me. Anybody can take a robot voice and apply it to anything, meaning that just because my favorite robot voice "Robot McRobot" read book XYZ doesn't mean I'll enjoy book XYZ. But because your voice is inherently scarce, you are only likely to read books that "work" for you.

I don't know what the process is for matching voice actor to book, but that process is inherently constrained because the voice belongs to a real human, and I enjoy the output of that process.

That said, while Audible is kind of expensive, I'm afraid that they'll reduce their price and move to robot voices and I'll lose interest entirely despite the cheaper price.

Just here to say the oposite. It is astonshing how far away it still is from a professional voice actor while being really good. Emotion is completely missing. Instead it seems to try to hard to express exactly that. I cant really put my finger on it. It feels predictable, flat and the timing is strange.

I think the voices are impressive, yet still uncanny and awkward. I don't want to hear them ever outside of the passing fascination of witnessing technological progress.

Frankly I like the arts strictly because they're expressed by humans. The human at the core of all of it makes it relatable and beautiful. With that removed I can't help wondering why we're doing it. For stimulation? Stimulation without connection? I like to actually know who voice actors are and follow their work. The day machines are doing it, I don't know. I don't think I'll listen.

Is only good if you are doing any type of quick AI slop like TikTok

Not for long. Sorry

Time to license your voice to Elevenlabs and sit back and enjoy the good life!