When ‘pay what you want’ means ‘don’t pay at all’

Here’s another online bookshop where you can try but not buy: is it time to give up on the pipedream?

One of the featured titles on the homepage of OpenBooks.com, a new online bookshop, is Pay What It’s Worth by Tara Joyce. The book, about how businesses can thrive by not setting prices, is not there by accident: it encapsulates the retailer’s business model.

Prospective buyers are told to “read first, pay later”, whereupon they can go with the recommended price of $11 or pay what they think Joyce deserves. A widget informs us that out of 71 downloads, two have been paid for. So far.

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