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brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof: :Nonbinary:") wrote:
@cwebber I volunteer in a used bookshop and asked my store manager about this. She was just as annoyed about the practice as I was, if not moreso!
Now, one of the things you quickly learn when working in a used bookshop is that donations keep on coming in but not everything sells or is sellable. There's ways to bulk-sell books on the cheap but sometimes even that isn't enough and a lot of stuff gets thrown into recycling. This is one of those things you have to learn to make peace with as a used bookseller.
But there does seem to be something different about having AI companies buy and pulp the books and the normal process of weeding out unsellable books. I expect a key difference is intent; you work at used bookstores because you like books and therefore you're motivated to keep as many (especially rare books) out of the trash pile as you can while these AI companies hoover up these books without a care