Is MeloShort Really Free?

Just lurking here. Looks like a lot of work to borrow e-books. The free e-books from my local library through their ebook app are fine by me!

A: No. But this is complex. As mentioned before the platform's main economy model is that of microtransactions. Free content can serve as a great marketing tool and also as a good user acquisition method. However, most of the popular content requires a lot of time in order to get to read it for free (and even then, you won't get to read the whole thing). Also, the amount of free currency that you get in order to buy something for free, is not sufficient. It takes a lot of time to amass that kind of amount of currency in order to read a big and complete work. Therefore, even though you don't have to pay to download the app, you are going to end up spending money in order to read the content that defines the app's value proposition. The app is free and it's meant to sell digital comics.

I verify the DRM-free file by testing an exit strategy. I ask myself: “Will I still have this book if this website or service goes bankrupt tomorrow?” My DRM-free files are local and not tied to any online account. So I verify as if the website or service just went bankrupt. I first download the book in question. I then block the website’s domain in my firewall. I try to open the book in question. Then I move the file in question to a different computer (that has never accessed the website in question) and try to open it again there. If it opens every time then the book in question is resilient. That’s DRM-free: resurgent against the worst distributor failures. Any “free” book that doesn’t verify by this simple test of an offline, multiple machine test of a temporarily-down distributor is a temporary loan. I don’t collect loans.

My approach to freely accessing many of the living authors of Westerns is to diversify my usage of the many different free tools. I use Libby for my holds, Hoopla for instant borrows, Chirp Books for the occasional deep discount on specific titles (e.g. all of Louis L’Amour’s titles for $2-$3 each), and Audible Plus, a rotating selection of free audiobooks to which I subscribe. While there’s no single, free, centralized repository for all the works of a single living author, the fragmentation of the market means that with enough different free tools, I can usually manage to get what I need to read without paying full retail for every single title. Yes, it’s a bit of a rat’s-nest to manage, but it works.

It’s a multi-layered puzzle which they design to deliberately try and make you give up. The first layer is the app itself, and then the device’s app store. I managed to find the Subscription menu option for the app, but unfortunately, within that menu all of the Subscription options seemed to only offer the ability to Switch Plan or View Benefits, but no option to cancel Subscription. It seems the real way to cancel a subscription for GoodShort, paid for via a device’s app store, is actually via the same platform that you paid to subscribe to GoodShort via. If you had signed up to GoodShort on a website then you can cancel your subscription via GoodShort’s actual website. You just log in to your GoodShort account and go to your account’s Billing section within your account dashboard. The website interface is occasionally a bit less nasty than the app, but only occasionally.

A free use setting or law in a fictional story means that sex is freely available and individuals are expected to use it freely in the story's universe, thus no consent is required for sexual encounters and it is assumed to be freely available in that story's universe. This trope appears frequently in online erotic literature such as erotic short stories in online fiction sites. Much of the work that falls into this category explores the psychological and social effects of such a system, with varying degrees of depth. Often these stories serve as a straightforward excuse for lots of sex, but others delve deeply into the concepts of autonomy, desire, and personhood under a coercive system. The work is a rather dicey trope due to its strong similarity to non-consent scenarios, but is generally defended as being within the bounds of fiction as long as it is clearly rule-based and within the boundaries of the work’s established fantasy space. Fanfiction and indie erotica serve as a sort of laboratory for explorations of very specific and highly particular kinks and scenarios.

View from a parent: The school provides access to this service so we can use it at home too. Login information is included on a handout sent home in my child’s backpack. My child uses this service on his iPad after school. I do not have to worry about in-app purchases or ads. The only thing I dislike about this service is that it is picked for curriculum/level reading and not for the latest manga or best seller that my child would like to read for fun. In that sense, it is ‘free’ in that I do not get a bill, but it is part of the public education that my child is receiving through the school. I consider this to be a very valuable supplemental resource to the public library, not a replacement to it. The service is very valuable for us as a supplemental reading resource, but not a replacement for our public library.

The larger coin bundles typically have ‘bonus coins’ included, to encourage the user to buy the bigger pack. As long as the user plans to use the app for some time, it is more cost-effective to buy the biggest pack during a promotion. Although that requires a larger amount of money upfront, it is a commitment and the app clearly wants to encourage users to become regular and invested users, rather than occasional one-off downloads. The cost-structure is geared towards users thinking about their total ‘coin balance’ rather than the cost of each individual transaction.

Marvel occasionally offers Marvel Comics for free on their official app and website, including for a limited time a free copy of ‘Tales of Suspense #59’. Many educational resources also offer up a comprehensive online archive of comics. Whilst options that are completely free to download are extremely scarce, it’s always possible to trade digital copies of the same issue with other comic book collectors via Discord communities – and remember to get them from official, legal sources to support the creators of the work.

Unfortunately, often the official translation is behind a paywall, but there are fan-made translations on the web. As for me, I do not support piracy, but for those works that have been officially translated years after the original publication, this is a big problem for readers. Some people feel less guilty if they read a fan TL and then buy the official version by the same author to support him or her. This, however, is a morally gray area.