Probably because they want to make money.
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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Same reason you (and/or others) ostensibly preach the same/similar noble causes online, but you don't refuse a paycheck either: you have bills to pay. So do they.
is this a strictly American thing or just a people who write books for a living thing?
Get a library card, beep.
They like to eat and pay bills.
Maybe authors want to eat or something. I heard eating is a thing now.
Not just a 'Murica thing, people write extensive literature of many types and ask for money. Some take a strict buy-then-read, some do more akin to the usual open source model of give and ask later.
I rather like the approach of give, ask for donations, and then also sell some physical special version in nice bindings or similar.
This is true, but it really is left up to the author because sometimes the writing of the material itself could take a multitude of years. Why do you think AI companies want to steal all of it rather than support those who actually create? It's hard to make and takes a long time.
It is, but being one who grew up when the OG Napster was a thing I came to look at intangible things in a different way. Replication of data is inevitable, people have been doing it since we first learned to communicate, so trying to perpetually fight it ends up just causing people on both sides grief in the end.
One of the first I recall to use the model I mentioned was Nine Inch Nails and the 'Ghosts' album, a novel concept at the time that seems to have been a lot more accepted in recent years.
There is perhaps a balance. I recently watched a video about the R4 DS card that allowed for an immense amount of piracy that killed off a shit ton of studios in the process. So maybe a time delay is probably best rather than forever paywall something.
The majority of people who would purchase the product wouldn't really wait. Only after a certain period after release does it make sense to make it public and not require people to pirate. Then again I would imagine that only works with large/popular releases, not so much the smaller creators who would want to make any kind of money they could regardless of the timescale (which is the majority of whom I think the OP is talking about)
The big vs small creator aspect has another angle to it as well though in the idea of exposure. A small creator downloaded by 10,000 may find themselves to be a less small creator due to word of mouth, which actually rather goes to OP's question of helping their cause via awareness. So those that can or would buy the book do, and those who can't/wouldn't still potentially receive the author's message.
An interesting idea for something like a video game, it gets first released on something like steam with locks for a time, and then when the initial hype passes it gets onto GOG with no locks but is still a nice central storefront. Lots of options out there to work with.
I fail to find much a difference between our conclusions in your post. I would imagine I probably came at it from the incorrect angle to think it was a contrary idea to mine, so instead I'll further the thought about still potentially receiving the author's message.
Something I didn't realize until now is that when you publish a pay walled book, in most countries there is a form of copyright, a system that is very akin to the solution that you and I have concluded on. Its something that allows for the progress of general humanity while also providing profit for the author. The real question is this.
How long should a creative or descriptive paywalled work be allowed to be paywalled before it placed into the public domain? In my opinion I think something like 75 years is far too long. Even 20 Years may be too long since now society progresses so fast.
@ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com (and others) What is your opinion on that time?
You think they are a good writer and should continue to write. Doing so full time only works if they can monetize it. If they have some primary source of major income, sure I guess. But if writing is how they feed their family, that's just the way it goes. My plumber is a bit of a socialist philosopher, doesn't mean he comes and does all the work for free.
We need to ban questions from people bad at thinking
I’m puzzled that you think this is a uniquely American phenomenon. But to answer the rest of the question:
Most of these people are probably spending time on their causes that they’d otherwise spend working. Their need/desire for money didn’t suddenly go away.
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Politicians need campaign money
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Important figures in tech pretty much always want as much money as possible, whatever else they claim; that’s part of why they do what they do
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A lot of feminists and social advocates probably need the money for their living expenses
Also, this plays into the norms of book publishing. People sometimes value things they pay for more. I tend to assume free books that aren’t classics are worse books, because in my experience, they often are. Traditional publishers usually won’t allow the book to be free (because they’re not charities, even if the book is about a cause), and self-published works have extremely variable quality.
Because we all toil under capitalism, and are forced to use money to survive.
money, duh...
How dare people want to be paid for their work