Comment by YetAnotherNick
7 days ago
If there are very few copies and no one wants to even spend $100 to scan it, likely the book wont be bought by anyone in any case and it would rot/thrown away in another 50 years if AI companies had not digitized it.
Which is what has happened over time now that humanity has the ability to digitize them. The problem arises when we are purposefully picking books where we know those scans aren't yet available and purposefully destroying them. There'd be less outrage if any of these companies made statements about guaranteeing the survival of the scans they are taking and the release or planned guaridanship in the case they can no longer maintain the data.
Who is digitizing the books which are rare? Isn't it even more valuable to digitize for them now that they have new buyer which can pay 100s of times more.
Anna's Archive is a controversial example with that as a stated goal. But more to the point most of the people doing it aren't seeking to profit from digitizing these books so the 'monetary value' of them is not the yard stick or motivator. A higher monetary value could actually make it harder for these projects as they can rely on donations of books or even waiting for someone who wants a book they bought so they can spend that on the next one (which is less useful if the next one on your list was bought to destroy by the same person who bought the book you finished scanning).
They're often books tied to a region, i.e. stories about a local fisherman's life and how they overcame adapting a boat to local feedstock, or the engineering that went into building the local train station. That's to say they can have little value to those outside the area but are still a rich read for locals, tourists, and those who move to the region or have a love for a place. I expect we'll see a concerted effort to organise to get these kind of book sent to regional mueseums for scanning now that people are aware they are actively being destroyed and they realise the timeline isn't how long the book can last.
Sorry, that "just-so" explanation is not how the world works.