alt Hacker NewsSometimes you have the drastic misfortune of someone totally off the rails writing crazy crap in it though, or a 3 year old experimenting with crayons. Not what the Stephenson article is about, but that sucks.
Amazon's used prices are usually set by booksellers that base their prices on stuff like this for some books... When you get to like old cheap paperback romances though, or that .01 plus shipping, you might or might not.
I would be pissed if I expected a clean, un-scribbled-on book I wanted and it was represented as such, but got that.
Buying a used book sight unseen from Amazon or from a reseller who doesn’t have a reputation for reporting used condition reliably … that’s a buyer’s choice. It’s not left to (mis)fortune.
Anyways, my point was to counter the parent post’s claim that notes in margins are shallow or unsocratic. Some are, some aren’t IME.