Interesting. I guess my impression of Book of the Month club and other such companies was that they were primarily about curation rather than about increasing choice and availability. There were lots of bookstores that were chock full of books; I feel like BotM was primarily a way to subscribe a curation service that would send you a particularly interesting book every month.

There were alternate choices each month too, and probably a way to order from some kind of catalog. But I feel like the main focus was on the one main book they would send each month.