That's what I'll do, that's what I did on the Wolfenstein book from the same author. My point is not about UX hardness or my expenses or anything like that. My point was: it's crazy there's no better way for me to get a book.pdf, and for him to get my money (a digital download and some row changes in databases).

Can't you just send xyz@gmail.com money on Paypal? At the cut that Amazon takes, if people send him $20, and half the people then "chargeback", and he just automatically sends the money back, he's still way ahead. Obviously the author is a smart guy so it can't be this simple, I'm just wondering.

Sidenote: The fact that "Bitcoin" is not the obvious answer is social/product proof that "Bitcoin" didn't work.

I don’t understand your side note.

Bitcoin is a payment network, not a distribution network so it would still require technical/manual investment from the author.

From what I’ve heard, there are some decentralized distribution platforms being created on other blockchains, but ignoring those I can’t see a reason to consider a payment network as a solution to a distribution problem - what the author needs is a distribution system that will serve his pdf in exchange for payment, and likely wants to treat payments as an abstraction.

It would be trivial to build a system using Bitcoin or other blockchains that would generate a unique download link to the book, but then the author would have to be tech support for any customer that ran into problems.

With a known, credible blogger-author like in the OP, he could just specify a bitcoin address, and I'd send him the money, and I'd trust him to then email me the book.pdf, it doesn't have to be a fancy tit-for-tat blockchain transaction.

But then he still has to deal with order fulfillment, returns, and customer problems. A distribution platform like Amazon and Google books handles that all for him.

If he wanted more money, there are plenty cheaper (as in time) solutions he could do instead of accepting direct payments.

>Bitcoin is not the obvious amswer

But maybe Ethereum or Litecoin or Monero is?

In case of Wolfenstein book, PDF from Play Store looks bad. It seems that fonts are included as bitmaps (not vectors) and it renders pretty ugly.

It really does look terrible - I wish I could have a more convenient way to read it on phone.

But then I assume Google will take a cut. I would much rather pay the author directly and get nothing but a download link for the PDF. How much of my money goes to Google if I order the PDF there?

Google takes a cut for the service of handling all the payment complications, including fraud prevention, refund requests, charge-backs, etc..

It's not like they are doing nothing.