Posting a book online with a password- that you broadcast.
Computational Complexity 2023-06-11
Recently Lance, at the request of Vijay Vazirani, tweeted the following (I paraphrase)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online and Matching-based Market Design book now available as free PDF
The password is OMBMD_CUP
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This tweet raises two questions.
1) When a book is put online, does it cut into sales? I've heard that people still like paper so the posting on line might be like an ad for the book. Also, for academic books, the authors WANT it to be out there and don't care so much about sales. If Gasarch & Martin's Bounded Queries in Recursion Theory was available for illegal download I would be delighted. And surprised.
2) SO, they post it to make it more available and generate buzz. So why have a password? Was this a compromise:
a) We want people to BUY the book so we'll post it with a password and limit access.
b) We want people to SEE the book since as academics we don't care about sales, and it might generate buzz, so we don't want a password
c) COMPROMISE: Have a password but tell everyone what it is.
If you can think of a more plausible scenario, leave a comment.