Serge from Babka

@acarson

I think one of the things that disability folks understand is the distinction I often make between media and containers.

A printed book can be a very beautiful thing. There's a sensory element to reading from a book, from the cover, to the typescript, the font, even the smell of the book.

But a book is ultimately a container. Its job is to contain the information held within it.

The same is true for things like DVDs, and there are wonderful DVD box sets that are made of metal, contain extras, etc. They have value and are interesting but their purpose is to contain the movie.

Once we think about divorcing the two concepts, the container from the media, we can think about the way we handle the two differently.

There are people who care deeply about containers. I am one of them, but I also rip all my DVDs and keep them in storage. I think I'd end up doing the same with most of my physical books.

@menelion @batzy

@batzy

Yeah this is what I thought. It's not attempting to destroy all books. It's that scanning books is hard when they still have their spines. Google and even Archive.org have done similar. Not doing so is *extremely* challenging.

And then once the books are digitized, storing them is very expensive. Destroying physical media is easier.

I'm not "defending" it but I know this space. It's less sinister than it sounds, honestly.

@batzy

I'm pretty sure no one is trying to destroy all physical books.