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📢 文末扫码进裙，免费领取双语精读版 Audiobooks: a growing market that asks existential questions The Guardian Audiobooks 6 May, 2024 | 550 words | ★★ ☆ ☆ ☆ When is a book not a book? When it is performed by a starry cast of hundreds. Except it has always been more complicated than that. News this week of a 17% hike in the UK’s audiobook sales might seem like a niche business story, but it raises an existential question. What exactly is an audiobook today? Is it a book? Is it a play? Or is it becoming something else entirely? What is clear is that a jostle for market dominance is driving it into new dimensions. The streaming platform Spotify followed its move into podcasting two years ago with the launch of an audiobooks business. Though it has yet to start making its own recordings, last autumn it made a deal for 200,000 audiobooks to be available to its premium users. Not to be outdone, Amazon-owned Audible – accustomed to being the market leader
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