>> Why couldn't overdrive simply cut a deal where a group of people (a school, a county, a company with benefits) is allowed to 'check out' a copy.
That is literally what they did. In the US, most public libraries are at the county level (though some at the township level or city level (e.g NYPL).) The library is serving to validate residency in the county and to segment county funding from tax dollars to the private service. The rest of the service is between the end reader and Overdrive. Even the catalog appears to be a whitelabel service atop Overdrive's APIs. The Library checked-out list likely reflects an API call on Overdrive -- there is no way a county library has the sophistication to build this out.
Similarly, my employer used to pay for the OReilly Safari service which is very similar, except from corporate coffers.
Similarly, my University used to pay for a textbook service, this time from University coffers.
That is literally what they did. In the US, most public libraries are at the county level (though some at the township level or city level (e.g NYPL).) The library is serving to validate residency in the county and to segment county funding from tax dollars to the private service. The rest of the service is between the end reader and Overdrive. Even the catalog appears to be a whitelabel service atop Overdrive's APIs. The Library checked-out list likely reflects an API call on Overdrive -- there is no way a county library has the sophistication to build this out.
Similarly, my employer used to pay for the OReilly Safari service which is very similar, except from corporate coffers.
Similarly, my University used to pay for a textbook service, this time from University coffers.