cross-posted from !android@lemdro.id
This is fantastic news! 😁
Sounded great at first, but 15 monthly hours is pretty terrible TBH. Not even an hour a day?
And if you listen at 1.5x speed, does that just burn your 15h faster or can you fit in more time?
It’s an interesting idea, but I think the only way I’d use it is a “try before you buy” and go out to Libro to make the purchase. At least that’s the only way I could realistically see using 15h/month.
For anyone interested in this news, don’t forget to check out your local library. If you’re in the US there’s a good chance that your library card will also give you access to online audiobooks for free!
If your library has hoopla you can get ebooks, music, tv shows, movies, comics, and magazines too. Unfortunately doesn’t work with ereaders for the ebooks.
Libby only supports kindle.
Both do support Android, though. There are Android ereaders available, and while they’re mostly Chinese companies I don’t personally trust much, low powered for tablets, and old Android with minimal support in terms of upgrades, I personally think the trade off is worth it compared to how limited your choices on proprietary readers are. I wouldn’t put confidential documents on them, but I also probably wouldn’t trust Amazon with that either.
Oh look, a paid subscription post! I shall take a detour from these salty black waters! 🏴☠️
15 hours/month is… pretty awful. An avid reader (or listener, in this case) will chew through that in no time at all. Another thing that concerns me is payouts. Spotify is notorious for having atrocious payouts to creators. I wonder how this carries over to their audiobook offerings.
Yep, just looking through my collection of audiobooks, and most are about 10 hours long.
8-12 are my lighter reads. Some of my favorites are 25-30.
I do do double speed, so I wonder if that ticks twice as fast on there. But 15 hours a month is pretty bad.
Edit: I just got an email from audible. I’ve listened to ~20900 minutes (348 hours) in 9 months (38.5/month) on there this year, and I’ve used Scribd and Libby way more. Obviously I’m not typical, and supporting me isn’t reasonable. But since they sent that the same day I made this post I thought I’d add it.
Knowing Spotify, I would assume it’s 15 hours of book regardless of speed listened.
It’s a free trial. I don’t know why everyone’s so shocked, they’re essentially giving you one or two free books in the hope that you’ll be hooked and want to pay for more!
Technically not free if you have to have a paid sub in order to access them. In that case it’s a paid trial with the opportunity to pay even more. Which sounds even worse for Spotify.
