Slashdot Mirror

japanese girly comics. Like Love Hina. Which have plots VERY like Megatokyo.

Excuse me but the reason Love Hina was a success is because of the humor and not just the Shoujo part. At least Love Hina had some life and the storyline actually moved beyond the pace of "does... she... love... me? Why... am... I... so... shy? Why... do... people... think... I'm... a... pedophile?".

My point is that Fred Gallagher tells a story like William Shatner. Slow, horrid, boring... I love the way he draws, and the early megatokyos were extremely cool because they had a little bit of humor in them, but lately I only catch up with the comic twice a month or so, while others like sluggy freelance get more of my attention.

I'm so dogtired of hearing yet another fanboy exclaim that Megatokyo is the ultimate comic online. I... used... to... think... webcomics... were... supposed... to... be... a... little... more... content... rich... and not just about how well drawn art is.

I'm a nerd/geek, and I like all sorts of anime, from I'm so depressed and I wish I was dead evangelion to look at me titties Mahoromatic, but when I read slashdot and I see yet again how Megatokyo is raised as an icon in webcomics because it's manga, and because it's supposed to be the mother of all webcomics... Face it, this isn't nerdnews, this has no place here. Which occasional reader of slashdot is going to order the book, if they haven't franticly reread every single comic online?

I'm not dissing this mans work (except... for... the... pace... in... the... storyline...), nor his opinions, nor his dead art days (which I love too by the way), but I think that if slashdot links this because it's the mother of all webcomics (so to speak) we should start linking each and every webcomic ranging from Machall (which is btw, a lot more geek-oriented), to Tuesday. (which is completely ungeeky) And what about userfriendly? Or sluggy? Or Bad boys of computer science? Or... (the list goes on and on and on).

To summarise what has happened so far in Megatokyo:

• Piro and Largo go to E3
• Piro takes Largo to Japan
• Piro and Largo are stuck in Japan
• Piro and Largo shack up with Tsubasa
• They both stay there leeching Tsubasa
• The stay there leeching some more of Tsubasa
• Piro gives a railcard to Kimiko
• Piro loses his bookbag in a bookshop
• Yuki (a 15 yo girl) finds Piros bookbag
• Yuki returns Piros bookbag and turns him into a pedophile in the publics eye
• Tsubasa brings back ping, and leaves Japan away from the leeching Piro and Largo
• Piro goes on a guilt-trip
• Piro gets a job and meets Erika (who still hasn't kicked his you know whats)
• Piro does more guilt-tripping
• Largo goes even more insane when he meets a Zombie queen named Tohya
• Piro is guilt-tripping over spaghetti and makes Kimiko think he's a pedophile
• more undead driveling on Largos mental front lawn
• Yuki wants drawing lessons, but Piro doesn't want to be a pedophile
• Piro takes a long trip to a town called Guilt
• Largo turns out to be mentally unstable (a trait often found in comic characters)
• Piro turns out to be shy (well duh)
• Kimiko thinks Piro's a pedophile (how long does it take to explain that you're living with a bloody robot???)
• Dom and Ed arrive in Japan, get beat up by a droid named Ping
• rabid squirrels take over Japan in attempt to stop Piro from actually becoming Lord of all fanboys

Now, most people (even shoujo-mangaka) take about a month or three worth of comics to sum up these events. Considdering Mr Gallagher has a busy job, family life, etc I'd say about six or seven months. But Piro takes up 70% of these comics either feeling sorry from himself, talking to his conscience (who's no longer funny btw), or banging his head against a counter for being called a pedophile by everyone in the comic except for Largo.

In the meantime however, in sluggy freelance (not shoujo btw), everything turned upside down in only three months, and now the pieces are falling together. This comic is (compared to MT) a little more vintage, and never lost it's pace (except with the elves... no more elves... I beg of you), and suffers less Dead Artist days than Megatokyo. OK, so it doesn't have the artistic manga look, but it's a comic that's going somewhere (really insane)... Summarizing sluggy the way I did with MT would be madmans work.

Can we now please stop with posting every rant Mr Gallagher has made on his site to slashdot? I'll surf to megatokyo.com if I want to read those.

Secondly, I thought I could add to the list of worthwhile webcomics to read:
Penny Arcade (above)
Res Life
Mac Hall
Angst Technology
Zeek V2.0
I'll avoid the urge to shamelessly promote my own new comic :)

As a form of serialization, web comics do okay if they are done well. Witness Megatokyo, Penny Arcade, PvP, and I guess to some extend Mac Hall, although I've only been reading the last for a few months.

The business model for these comics is interesting. The comic itself has no value; with so much competition in free entertainment there is no way they could make people pay for it. But they can sell merchandise and they can solicit fan endorsement. Kurtz sells comic books that are along the lines of the webcomic but not quite. Mac Hall and Megatokyo sell merchandise ala Cafe Press. Penny Arcade...well...I'm not exactly sure what they do, but it has something to do with wallpapers and Paypal.

And let's not forget ads.

What I would like to see, as a consumer, is a lot of these comics brought together under one web publication. In Japan, manga is distributed in a big monthly magazine containing works by many authors. The magazine sells, the ads sell, and the publication passes some of that along to the artists (I would hope). If something like this appeared online, say like Keenspot but more organized, more selective, and with much much much higher bandwidth, I would definitely pay for it, ads and all, simply for the convenience of a daily/weekly/monthly strip on a high availability server.

What about digimon pr0n? "Mommy! What are they doing?"

People will balk initially at paying for content, but I think they'll gradually get used to it. I remember being pissed that I'm paying for cable AND for the commercials they're sending me, but now I've just come to accept it.

I don't know about this. Some sites (Megatokyo, MacHall, Salon, and RPG World) I would pay for. Not $6/mo each, mind you, but they do provide quality content, and they are sites that (with the exception of Salon, whose good articles are all available to paid subscribers only) I visit regularly and would like to support, even if only in principle. This, however, presumes that I have money, which I don't, otherwise I would donate or buy 'fanboy merch'.

The thing is, most people are greedy, and, as Piro said, seem to think that once something is free, it's their God Given Right to keep getting it for free. Some people will pay more for added value (say, if I, as a subscriber, could buy limited-edition Megatokyo or MacHall prints, get fanboy swag at a discount, or get to buy/read stuff ahead of time), but very few people will pay for Salon's service after getting it all for free, even if it -is- worth it, because it once was free. Nevermind that circumstances have changed, and ad revenue has declined, and nevermind that the service might actually be worth it (I will pay Salon $10/mo before I give Blue Mountain a penny).

Personally, I think more websites should support things like paypal and so on. Oddly, most (comic) sites are -not- doing this, even shifting -away- from this, preferring to rely on revenues from merch sales and so on. Me, I'd rather throw $2 at them via paypal instead of buying a $15 shirt that they only make $2 profit from anyway. Maybe I'll buy a shirt once, but I'm not going to buy one every month, and I'd like to keep supporting Megatokyo and MacHall indefinitely.

After all, $2 won't get me anything, but if all the MacHall fans out there threw $2 at Ian, maybe he could finally get a G4 that could play Black and White on a level with Micah's machine. Problem is, most people can't or won't. I mean, $2 is not that much, but a lot of people don't have credit cards, don't have paypal, don't want to set them up, etc. This is likely why Penny Arcade's donation box didn't work too well, or at least, why they discontinued it. If every MT/PA fan donated $2/mo, these guys could have lived like kings, but most people didn't care, were too lazy, or just couldn't (like me).

Oh well. It'll come around sooner or later. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

--Dan

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.per .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens .and .you .have .to .put .some .lame .lameness .filter .defeater .text .in .there .i .wonder .how .many .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .people .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE .WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could .be .as .wide .as .this .dont .you .wide .pages .are .much .cooler .than .those .narrow .pages .you .are .used .to .reading .because .you .dont .have .to .worry .about .the .lameness .filter .telling .you .that .you .don't .have .enough .charaters .per .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens .and .you .have .to .put .some .lame .lameness .filter .defeater .text .in .there .i .wonder .how .many .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .people .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE .WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could .be 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.how .many .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .people .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE .WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could .be .as .wide .as .this .dont .you .wide .pages .are .much .cooler .than .those .narrow .pages .you .are .used .to .reading .because .you .dont .have .to .worry .about .the .lameness .filter .telling .you .that .you .don't .have .enough .charaters .per .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens .and .you .have .to .put .some .lame .lameness .filter .defeater .text .in .there .i .wonder .how .many .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .people .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE .WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could .be .as .wide .as .this .dont .you .wide .pages .are .much .cooler .than .those .narrow .pages .you .are .used .to .reading .because .you .dont .have .to .worry .about .the .lameness .filter .telling .you .that .you .don't .have .enough .charaters .per .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens .and .you .have .to .put .some .lame .lameness .filter .defeater .text .in .there .i .wonder .how .many .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .people .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE .WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could .be .as .wide .as .this .dont .you .wide .pages .are .much .cooler .than .those .narrow .pages .you .are .used .to .reading .because .you .dont .have .to .worry .about .the .lameness .filter .telling .you .that .you .don't .have .enough .charaters .per .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens .and .you .have .to .put .some .lame .lameness .filter .defeater .text .in .there .i .wonder .how .many .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .people .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE .WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could .be .as .wide .as .this .dont .you .wide .pages .are .much .cooler .than .those .narrow .pages .you .are .used .to .reading .because .you .dont .have .to .worry .about .the .lameness .filter .telling .you .that .you .don't .have .enough .charaters .per .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens .and .you .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could .be .as .wide .as .this .dont .you .wide .pages .are .much .cooler .than .those .narrow .pages .you .are .used .to .reading .because .you .dont .have .to .worry .about .the .lameness .filter .telling .you .that .you .don't .have .enough .charaters .per .line .that .really .sucks .when .that .happens .and .you .have .to .put .some .lame .lameness .filter .defeater .text .in .there .i .wonder .how .many .people .will .read .this .whole .comment .I .certainly .hope .it .doesnt .annoy .too .many .people .This .is .just .the .beginning .because .PAGE .WIDENING .IS .BACK .I .like .wide .pages .I .wish .all .pages .could --
- Marco Share twitter facebook linkedin

whew... (Score:1) by MoceanWorker ( 232487 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:37AM (#3077327) Homepage I'm lucky, because i just checked today's comic (if there was any) about 5 minutes ago... i'm assuming piro's site is going to be down for a couple of hours. Not to mention, they just had a server relocation which caused them to be down for a week ;-) --


"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins Share twitter facebook linkedin

Enough about why the .coms didn't work (Score:3, Funny) by iamjim ( 313916 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:38AM (#3077331) Have we heard enough about why the .com "era" failed? Enough "dot bomb" and other witty phrases refering to a once disturbingly propserous era. The fact is that people got dumb for a while. Things have worked for a certain way for a long time. I am sick and tired of reading the news about how someone on wall street had a bad weekend and now the nasdaq is down 200 points. Little do we know it, it is a coffee shop across the street of the trading rooms that switched their regular coffee to folgers crystals two years ago - lets see what happens? Share twitter facebook linkedin

• Re:Enough about why the .coms didn't work (Score:2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:41AM (#3077348) Actually, his response, if read, was actually pretty cool, talking about respect being the currency of the net, and other thoughts that were new to me. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Enough about why the .coms didn't work (Score:5, Insightful) by nomadic ( 141991 ) writes: Alter Relationship <nomadicworld@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:04AM (#3077490) Homepage The fact is they're still dumb. They saw that the internet was popular, and their kneejerk reaction was to try to think up a way to capitalize financially on that. They're still doing it.
  
  Analysts come up with figures: x% of internet users will be going wireless by 200y. So they just pump millions of dollars into creating infrastructure, never bothering to look at those figures with any intelligence. How did some guy in a little office downtown come up with these figures? Surveys? Estimations? Listening to wireless company executives' pipe dreams?
  
  Look at interactive TV. For YEARS they've been churning out one failed interactive TV venture after another. They've managed to convince themselves that people want to talk to their TV, and it doesn't matter how many times it fails, they're still lining up to make the next doomed platform.
  
  Not everything can be commoditized, and it's a sad statement on our current culture when the first question that pops into some greedy, inept "entrepreneur" is how much can I make? Piro put it very simply and clearly; just because people like something doesn't mean they're going to pay for it, especially if they used to get it for free (it was a nice change from his usual rants, which usually run along the lines of "this strip has sucked any enjoyment out of my life, and I now live in a constant hell of fatigue and despair. I'm so very, very tired..." Wish the poor guy would realize we don't mind if a strip is a few days late.) Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Enough about why the .coms didn't work (Score:1) by ethereal ( 13958 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:19AM (#3078787) Journal

    (it was a nice change from his usual rants, which usually run along the lines of "this strip has sucked any enjoyment out of my life, and I now live in a constant hell of fatigue and despair. I'm so very, very tired..."

    Think "sad girls in snow", Piro - quick!

    Seriously, I don't understand why he puts up with even 10% of the crap he gets. If I were putting up a free comic for all and sundry, you can bet I wouldn't be taking any criticism from others about my art, let alone about how often I update the site, when the shirts will be available, etc. People need to understand that he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart and artistic integrity, and he needs to understand that he's entirely entitled to tell any complainers to STFU, or at least to completely ignore them.

    And MT isn't the only comic - it seems that most widely-read web comics acquire a halo of people that just bitch to the artist and make them feel bad. I'm in the "silent majority" - I read web comics every day but I usually don't email the author either to complain or to applaud. And it really pisses me off to read that somebody's been giving one of my favorite artists grief for something that they do completely for free anyway. Some people are just not very nice, I guess - I was taught that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything.

    I think I'm done ranting now :)

    --
    

    Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:Enough about why the .coms didn't work (Score:1) by Zurk ( 37028 ) writes: Alter Relationship <[zurktech] [at] [gmail.com]> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @10:18AM (#3080763) Journal hey..it happens to everyone of us even those writing free software. most simply ignore it and hit delete if its a flame mail. ive been flamed at various times for [1] writing code that was not indented or commented. well...duh...do i look like i care? [2] writing code that crashed someones machine when it explicitly stated on the page : BETA RELEASE: FOR PROGRAMMERS ONLY. WILL CRASH. [3] flamed for the lack of features [4] flamed for having too many features [5] flamed for a sucky interface [6] flamed for having too nice an interface.
      do i care ? nope. i just move on and hit delete. and my projects arent really that popular...i cant imagine what the popular projects get.
      usually anyone posting stuff on the net gets a thick skin after a while. its no big deal.
      Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Enough about why the .coms didn't work (Score:2) by BitwizeGHC ( 145393 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:26AM (#3077604) Homepage A while back I referred to that period in our history as "just the introduction to the Opposites". Funny, nobody linked to the rant on my comic... --
  N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz! Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Enough about why the .coms didn't work (Score:3, Funny) by grammar fascist ( 239789 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @11:22AM (#3081187) Homepage Speaking of "dot bomb," I've got a suggestion for ICANN on a new TLD.
  
  Just imagine. . . newfangledsolutions.bomb. . . pointclick.bomb. . . amazon.bomb. . .
  --
  I got my Linux laptop at System76. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Jon? (Score:5, Funny) by EricKrout.com ( 559698 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:38AM (#3077333) Homepage Say the name MegaTokyo and most people, if they recognize it, think 'one of the best manga/comics on the net today. (ignoring the recent 'stick figure dom' days while Piro was moving).' But few people think about the social, economic and philosophic issues the authors' rants can delve into. This morning Piro put up a rather long 'rant' that's really a catching insight into why the dot-com world didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving.

Mr. Katz:

If you can't even post commentaries under your own identity anymore for fear of 200 comments blasting your credibility and cliched statements, I think it's time you pack your bags and leave.

Sincerely,
Slashdot Users, #2 - #570,000
;-) Share twitter facebook linkedin

• Re:Jon? (Score:2, Insightful) by darketernal ( 196596 ) writes: Alter Relationship <joshk.triplehelix@org> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:54AM (#3077433) Homepage Well, as user #196596, count me out.
  
  If you compare every piece of writing that delves into something a troll like you wouldn't understand to Katz - yes, agreed, Katz can get repetitive and annoying AT TIMES - then you should be the one packing your bags, in shame.
  
  Fred is a smart guy and wouldn't rant giant loads of trash on his own page as you so allude him to. Give him a break. He's no industry analyst or Robert X. Cringely. He's just a manga artist that vents his thoughts on his own personal web page - just like thousands if not millions of other normal people around the world who share themselves with each other.
  
  So is the problem that each time something gets slashdotted that it goes under a vastly different scrutiny filter? If you're mad at the story, shouldn't you be more mad at the person who submitted it? It's like submitting a story to someone's livejournal!
  
  I rest my case. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Jon? (Score:1) by darketernal ( 196596 ) writes: Alter Relationship <joshk.triplehelix@org> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:57AM (#3077450) Homepage

    submitting a story about

    Oops. Sorry for any confusion this might have caused
    
    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Jon? (Score:2, Funny) by Mynn ( 209621 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:01AM (#3077471) Just filter him out, only takes a few minutes ... after a while, you stop comparing others to him and suspect it's a "ringer".
    
    That said, I'm quite impressed with MegaTokyo and that Piro and Largo (Fred and ???) have kept it going despite the trials that are life.
    
    *deletes large rant about another web comic strip that is run by someone who does it as their full time job and can't keep up half as well to their stated commitments and decided to add to their burden by producing a subscription sideline* --
    
    Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:Jon? (Score:2, Informative) by darketernal ( 196596 ) writes: Alter Relationship <joshk.triplehelix@org> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:04AM (#3077493) Homepage Piro = Fred Gallagher
      Largo = Rodney Caston Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Jon? (Score:1) by Cyclops ( 1852 ) writes: Alter Relationship <rms@@@1407...org> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:12AM (#3077539) Homepage Although this may have been intended as a joke, I am an user within #2 - #570,000 and I reject this statement. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Jon? (Score:1) by nusuth ( 520833 ) writes: Alter Relationship <oooo_0000us AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:43AM (#3078083) Homepage So you think even if katz can't post commentaries under his own identity anymore he nevertheless shouldn't pack his bags and leave? --
    

    Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!

    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Jon? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:46AM (#3077706) funny. that is EXACTLY when i glanced up at the author to see who had written this drivel. needless to say i was expecting a big fat katz. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Jon? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:20AM (#3077906) Off-topic? Someone forget to have their morning coffee or didn't receive a sense of humor at birth. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• NFW (Score:2) by cabbey ( 8697 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:48AM (#3078121) Homepage I am NOT Jon Katz. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:YFW (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:07AM (#3078269) Just like there is no spoon... Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:NFW (Score:2) by JordanH ( 75307 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @08:09AM (#3079641) Homepage Journal
    • I am NOT Jon Katz.

    Of course, that's exactly what Jon Katz would say if he were trying to post an Ask Slashdot under a nom de plume, isn't it?

    You'll have to do better than THAT, Jon.

    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:NFW (Score:1) by tonywong ( 96839 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @11:03AM (#3081072) Homepage Heh, this reminds of the Fight Club scene where Jack is trying to convince the lower ranking police officers not to cut off Jack's balls.
      
      Jack: "You're making a big mistake, fellas."
      Officer: "You said you'd say that."
      Jack: "I'm not Tyler Durden!"
      Officer: "You told us you'd say that too."
      Jack: "I am Tyler Durden. Listen to me, I am giving you a direct order: we are aborting this mission, right now."
      Officer: "You said you would definitely say that." Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
      • Re:NFW (Score:1) by cabbey ( 8697 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @11:29AM (#3081220) Homepage hehe, ok... how 'bout this... a userid of 8697 should clearly predate the time when Jon darkened the stoop of /. with his entry. :) Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
        • Re:NFW (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @01:38PM (#3081793) Not at all. You cannot fool the truly paranoid- your manipulations only raise the question: what did you to to the old user 8697 before you stole his id?
          
          After all, if you have access to the lowest levels of slashdot, you have the power to change a simple database entry. Delete a password- change it to slashdot01- you don't even have to mess with the username.
          
          Is the old cabbey still alive, or did you "reassign" him? If so, is he even aware of the fact that his id is being used for such nefarious schemes? or is he just another of the thousands of users who became disillusioned with /. over the years, moving on to other places and topics which don't include Microsoft OR anime porn, therefore leaving himself wide open to account hijacking...
          
          j00 c4n7 f00l u5 j0n, w3 kn0w 411 j00r 53cr3t5... Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
          • Re:NFW (Score:1) by painkillr ( 33398 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:29PM (#3082232) If I had the power to change my user id #, I'd change it to 1337.
            
            Cause you know... i'm lame like that. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
          • Re:NFW (Score:1) by cabbey ( 8697 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:03PM (#3082506) Homepage ROTFL. thank you ac. :) Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Conflict of Interest? (Score:0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:39AM (#3077337) Is this story being run because MegaTokyo runs banner ads on Slashdot? I can't think of any other reason why it would be called news. Share twitter facebook linkedin

• Re:Conflict of Interest? (Score:-1) by l33t j03 ( 222209 ) writes: Alter Relationship <l33tj03@hotmail.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:14AM (#3077550) Homepage Journal It sure is. Think back to They Might Be Giants. I just checked out VA's self service banner ad deal and I think I might try to put together an ad for Goat Sex and buy a few page impressions. If they are willing to run a story on how the Goat Sex guy handles all of his traffic, I might be willing to toss a few extra thousand their way. --
  

  Cunning linguists

  Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Here's the article (Score:4, Informative) by Talisman ( 39902 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:40AM (#3077344) Homepage I knew it would get /.'d, so here it is:

As you can see, there is no comic today - that's my fault, and involves many factors (the most significant of which is my complete and utter inability to draw tonight. once you go thru 10 sheets of paper its time to face facts and go to plan 'b') So, you get a new comic Thursday and Friday this week instead of Wednesday and Friday. What's a few more hate e-mail this week, i'll live.

I have a tendency to forget things sometimes. Like, for instance, Sweetest Day. Valentines day. Seraphim's Birthday. The fact that you buy gifts for people at Christmas. Things like that.

Even when i do remember these things, the execution of them often has tragic results. I don't send Seraphim flowers typically. Mostly because of one incident where i sent her this amazingly beautiful arrangement that had pollen so toxic that we had to lock the bouquet in the bathroom to keep it from killing her. This florist has subsequently gone out of business.

When it comes to gifts, i'm not big on 'oh, its a holiday, i gotta find something, anything' kind of gift giver. I'd rather come up with something REALLY nice, or really useful. This attitude towards gift giving makes it harder than normal to find things for the people in your life. More often than not, i tend to push off these shopping tasks until it is too late, resulting in the 'pick up anything you can find' method of shopping the day before you need it (i've purchased chirstmas presents on christmas day. Yes, i am that pathetic.)

Anyways, as you might expect, valentines day this year was even worse than usual. Seraphim told me without hesitation that she was more than happy with the botched shirt and candy box gift i attempted to give her days earlier (long story), but i still felt BAD for not having something to give her on valentines day itself. So, i think to myself, i'll send her an e-card! Yea! the ultimate loser geek thing to send to your girl.

For years, i've been sending out Blue Mountain Arts cards to Seraphim, often forgetting that i had already sent her that particular card (bear themed cards are popular between us) but even so, i don't do it THAT regularly. So imagine my surprise when i pulled up Blue Mountain Arts that day and discovered that this once free service was now something you had to pay for.

So, as a loving boyfriend, did i pony up the dough and send her a card? Hell no.

There's an inherent part of human nature that just makes you bristle at having to suddenly pay for something that you didn't have to pay for before. Have a great free service? Sure, people will use it and love it. The business model that says 'give it to them for a while for free so they fall in love with it, then start charging them?' - er, sorry guys. Nice business model, absolutely no understanding of human nature. Since a significant portion of the dot-com economy was based on this model, it should have been no surprise to anyone that the whole thing fell on it's collective ass.

I can totally understand why Blue Mountain Arts switched to a pay for use model. All that traffic has to use a LOT of bandwidth, and with companies no longer hosing advertising dollars around without any real worries as to whether it was effective or not, there's gotta be some way to pay the bills. So, the idea that you get a significant chunk of your users to pay a small fee makes a lot of sense - after all, you get a LOT of people to pay a LITTLE money, you're problems are over, right? Sadly, i don't think this is really the case. It goes against the very nature of the web.

Lets face it. One of the reasons people LIKE the internet is that it gives people access to a LOT of information and entertainment for very low cost. It's not free - most of us pay a reasonable amount of money for bandwidth and internet connections - but on the net we pretty much like to think that once we've paid admission, we're free to roam and do whatever we like. Transferring information on the net is CHEAP. its so cheap, you can pretty much give it away for free. If people like it, they keep coming back for more. The commodity of the internet isn't money, it's access. It's connections. You're wealth in net terms is defined by 'what you have access to'.

We all have friends or people we know who can find just about anything, legal or otherwise, on the net with little or no effort. MP3 files are a good model to look at for this. A lot of great music is pretty much free for the asking at sites like mp3.com but most of the files traded around aren't really 'legal'. Are people really willing to pay for Mp3 files? Not really, because we already have it in our minds that mp3s are a 'free' resource. We don't feel we get any value buy paying for it. If we DO slap down money for music, we want the tangible piece of circular plastic where we can say 'this is mine'.

Then there is this rather interesting phenomenon that often occurs. Once you have the CD, you burn MP3 files and make them available for others over the net. Why would someone do that? Because it adds value to their purchase. We get not only the music, but the added benefit of having added something to the collective pool of information. You've added access to this music, you've increased your own online 'wealth'.

One of the reasons i started Fredart years and years ago was that i found that i wanted to provide my own thing to the 'pool'. For anime fans, especially back then, there was this whole world of japanese anime and manga where entire series lay waiting to be discovered. If nothing else, you could take all the information available on them, collect it together into a webpage, and make it more easily available for people seeking info on a particular series. At the time, I remember noticing that there were no web pages on 3x3 Eyes, so i decided that i would make one. Pai's Page was, really, the first web page on the series, and i did a fairly good job on it. Once making it, however, i had little interest in working any further on it. There was something that just wasn't satisfying about just re-arranging what was, in effect, someone elses work.

Around that time i started to explore japanese websites that revolved around anime and manga. In japan, it was considered bad form to just scan and post copywrited images, so japanese fans found that the best way they could express their loyalty and love for a series and its characters was to do their own fan works. I really liked this model, and Fredart was direct derivative of those style of pages. I wanted to provide NEW material to the web, not just stuff i had found surfing around, or even stuff scanned out of magazines. I was adding something original to the pool, not just reorganizing and recollecting.

I think that one of the things you get when you add to the pool, so to speak, is a certain amount of respect. you don't just take, you give as well. The net lends itself well to new ways that people can provide things to the collective pool. You don't need to be sponsored and paid for by some big media company to get your work in front of millions of people. The old model was that you had to be able to convince a bunch of people with lots of money that you were worth promoting before you even had a chance to see if people would respond to your work on a grand scale. This lead, for the longest time, to the sad state where only a small number of people decided what the public was going to see. Also, since these same people convinced all of us over the years that ONLY people that they felt were good enough to promote were worthy of entertaining us, that we should not waste our time entertaining ourselves - only paid for entertainment was worthy entertainment. Worked great till the net came along.

The net shatters some of the basic structures that people have used for ages to control the dissemination of information. Easy to send, easy to duplicate. The Dot com economy was doomed from the onset because it was formed on the basis of the idea that by just getting out there and capturing the attention of a big chunk of the internet population, the money would just start flowing in. Heh. Some hard lessons have been learned. It doesn't really work that way.

If you think about it, the real currency on the net isn't money. It's respect. Either as an individual or as an entity you gain respect by providing either new material to the net pool, or you provide effective and useful ways for people to access information that is already out there. A lot of big sites that do this started out small (even yahoo. i remember when it was just a link list over at Stanford run by two guys). Of course, respect doesn't pay the bills, so there always comes a time where you have to start looking at how to not only survive, but maybe even prosper a little on all this.

It's in this armature where the real economic viability of the net rests. There is no direct relationship between turning respect into dollars, but that doesn't mean to say that there isn't some relationship between the two. In my opinion, i feel there is a trade off - when you start charging for what you provide, you loose some of the respect you've earned, because now people have traded cash for it. The nature of the relationship has changed. When you move to a pay-for-services model, it completely changes the nature of the interaction between a site and its users. It's especially bad if people suddenly have to pay for something that was, for the longest time, free. Honestly, i think that it's human nature to almost feel 'betrayed' - which, of course, leads to a real loss of hit points in the respect column. ^_^;; The paradox here is that once people loose respect for a site, won't they be less willing to pay for it?

Odd train of thought, huh? I've had to think a lot about stuff like this lately. Running a site like MT is expensive - we've crested 10 million page views this month already, but at the same time the site is almost no different than it was when it was a non-working html template that i had pieced together over a weekend a year and a half ago. Largo and I really do, i think, have a little bit of an understanding of what makes MT what it is - tho i do have to tell you the mind boggles at why so MANY people seem to find the site worth visiting - and with that understanding comes a responsibility to make sure that whatever we do to help keep the site alive NEVER messes with those things. To me, the respect people have shown me over the years for all the hard work and dedication we've put into the site is something i never want to trade in on - because its worth more than any amount of money to me.

I suppose that its the post-dotcom economy sites that now bear the burden of figuring out how to survive in the wired. How DO you survive, pay hosting bills, make enough money to support yourself and others who help run the site? Traditional business model ways of looking at things has already proven that we all know less than we thought we did. Largo and i do it the hard way - we both work full time jobs AND do this silly site. This is not, of course, ideal, and speaks more about our lack of useful brain cells than any kind of success as a website.

I think that an understanding of human nature is almost more important here on the web than in any other business environment. Why? because unlike in the real world we are used to, we've been trained to an 'us and them' mentality in regards to our entertainment and things that we purchase in stores - we are consumers, they are providers. On the net, its different. We are all one in the same - fredart.com was just as accessible as ibm.com. We all can make websites. We all KNOW we have the ability to reach millions of people. Many sites, even Megatokyo itself, has proven that individuals can do this. You dont need to be a big corporation. We all have the same basic presence on the net - its how we use it that makes us who we are here.

Oh, and Seraphim's reaction to me being so cheap that i wasn't willing to pay for a subscription to Blue Mountain Arts to send her a valentines day e-card? Her answer was, if you think about it, not surprising: "The hell with that. you're little ASCII heart was so cute."

It's not the money you spend, its the thought that goes into it. You can't buy respect, you can only earn it.

--

"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel Share twitter facebook linkedin

• Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:1) by zoomin ( 168286 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:55AM (#3077435)
  

  We get not only the music, but the added benefit of having added something to the collective pool of information. You've added access to this music, you've increased your own online 'wealth'.

  Yes, increased your online wealth by stealing from the artist.
  
  Don't you get your hand cut off for theft in Japan?
  
  Strange words to be coming from an artist...? Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:2, Interesting) by redgren ( 183312 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:05AM (#3077498) Journal Yes, increased your online wealth by stealing from the artist ... Strange words to be coming from an artist...?
    
    He's not advocating that you do this. He is stating it as a fact-of-life on the internet. Which it is. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:3, Interesting) by GTRacer ( 234395 ) writes: Alter Relationship <(gtracer308) (at) (yahoo.com)> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:05AM (#3077502) Homepage Journal Yes, increased your online wealth by stealing from the artist.?

    I think he's pointing out something blindingly obvious about the human condition - I bet 90% of the people trading MP3s don't give it a second thought. They probably feel all l337. Doesn't make it right, but it explains the motivations of 90% of music-sharers.

    Those motivations are what these companies and industry groups (Sony, RIAA, MPAA, TWAT...) need to understand.

    I don't agree with smashing IP law and having a free-for-all, but the obvious non-understaning of what makes netizens tick is what makes me so angry when these stupid IP lawsuits get thrown about like so much Cheez-Wiz.

    Face it, content creators, it's a new paradigm out there. Adjust, destroy, or be destroyed...

    GTRacer
    - What /. needs is a "Nani Naze /." page...
    

    --
    Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice! Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:2) by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:36AM (#3078464) > What /. needs is a "Nani Naze /." page...
      
      I can see it now--Cmdr. Taco gets the little boy overalls and CowboyNeal gets the rabbit suit...
      
      Chris Mattern Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:1) by mazachan ( 126721 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:14AM (#3079216) Actually not at all.. I would say I download quite a bit of mp3s. However, I do not do it because I feel "l33t". There are quite a few people like me. I listen to music from overseas (I live in the US), particularly Hong Kong. However, since Chicago does not have as big a Chinese population as say, San Francisco or Toronto, people that sell cds here don't do too well. You either pay 25-30 dollars for a cd. If they had cds here for regular price, I would buy it. Heck, whenever I go back to Hong Kong I will buy regular cds (NOT Pirated mind you). I think that mp3 sharing is a god send for people like us. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
      • Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:1) by lunatik17 ( 91135 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:07PM (#3082160) Homepage And I thought I was one of the only ones who felt this way. This is actually the biggest reason why I miss Napster. I listen to a lot of Japanese music and when I heard a really cool song I wanted to download it, because theres no way I'll find it sold locally and getting it shipped from overseas is iffy. --
        

        Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?

        Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:4, Insightful) by Psmylie ( 169236 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:06AM (#3077507) Homepage Note the quotation marks around "wealth". He was speaking hypothetically. This was more of a philosophical rant then anything else. In no way do I see Piro endorsing any kind of theft in this statement. --
    

    psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo

    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Increase your wealth through piracy (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @11:10AM (#3081126) Insisting on calling piracy theft is just as stupid as insisting on it being called copyright infringement. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: increase your wealth through theft...? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Sunday March 03, 2002 @04:18AM (#3101297) Musicians should make their money from concerts not records. That's what was feeding them before recordings were ever invented. They just used records as a way to go from a profession to an industry. If it costs 33 cents retail for a blank CD, why does the "industry" charge upwards of $15-20? Because people will buy it. Only an idiot would drop the price if people are willing to pay for it. But now we are not. We can get it for 33 cents. Do we feel bad? No. Why? Because we have to sit there and hear musicians who have more money than we ever will bitch about how they, as artists, are being screwed then watch them drive off in a car that we will never afford. We are sick of it and have found a way around it. It is a decaying industry, where all that matters is money. If you want to see how bad it really is check this out: http://www.blistering.com/news/newsdet.php3?ID=258 3 People are fed up and have been given an alternative. The only thing that can't be copied and digitalized is the live performance. Of course, the music industry will argue with me and say that I am wrong but the fact is that as soon as a song gets played on a radio, it's free for the taking and I do not see how the industry is going to stop it. The only way is to stop recording music, but that would kill the industry. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Here's the article (Score:-1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:10AM (#3077526) it hasn't been slashdotted yet, whore. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• hey!... (Score:1) by simpl3x ( 238301 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:23AM (#3077589) i thought i was the first to do an ascii heart!!! Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Here's the article (Score:2, Insightful) by Grmdzo ( 236145 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:39AM (#3077663)

  I think that an understanding of human nature is almost more important here on the web than in any other business environment. Why? because unlike in the real world we are used to, we've been trained to an 'us and them' mentality in regards to our entertainment and things that we purchase in stores - we are consumers, they are providers. On the net, its different. We are all one in the same - fredart.com was just as accessible as ibm.com. We all can make websites. We all KNOW we have the ability to reach millions of people. Many sites, even Megatokyo itself, has proven that individuals can do this. You dont need to be a big corporation. We all have the same basic presence on the net - its how we use it that makes us who we are here.

  I found this gentle rant had a well considered analysis of how some people perceive the web. While some parts of the web enhance and complement my traditional information needs, such as dictionary lookups, news, product information, the volume and diversity of the rest of the web helps me to "see further" (to paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton). I can start by building on the knowledge and experience of others, rather than repeating their trials and experiments.

  Piro discusses adding something very much like a bait-and-switch scheme to the Field of Dreams business model. "If you build it, they will come". I think this strategy works well for making information available, but does not work well for making money from those visitors, unless they have come visiting intending to spend money.

  Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Here's the article (Score:1) by Doppler00 ( 534739 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:58AM (#3077778) Homepage Journal What policy on Slashdot says that anyone who happens to copy/paste the original article (and violate copyright along the way) automatically gets modded up to 5? I would think that it should be modded down for such an action. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Here's the article (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:11AM (#3077860) Poor Megatokyo... they're already short on cash, and I can't imagine how much that link is going to cost them. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Here's the article (Score:2) by ergo98 ( 9391 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:35AM (#3078014) Homepage Journal

    9 times out of 10 the person posting a karma whore verbatim of an article gets modded into oblivion, but every now and then when the host server is actually having problems (as it is right now), people do appreciate being able to read what the article is about, and they mod it up.

    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:Here's the article (Score:1) by yintercept ( 517362 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:52AM (#3078152) Homepage Journal I was thinking the mod up was because of the ironic twist of the article. One of the themes of the rants was that you increased your self worth by displaying someone elses work and adding to the collective pool...so cutting and pasting the article into the /. pool should earn a big mod up...wish I had thought of it. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
      • Re:Here's the article (Score:2) by cymen ( 8178 ) writes: Alter Relationship <cymenvig@nospaM.gmail.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:00AM (#3078641) Homepage Subthreads like these are where the +/- 0 Meta-Comment would come in handy! Anyone else sick of reading Meta-Comments? I don't have a problem with them but it navel gazing gets old after a year or two. Being able to skip such threads would be awesome.
        
        Of course moderation seems to be hard enough as it is so maybe I shouldn't advocate a change.
        
        My /. Meta-Comment for the day (opinions on whether it should be metacomment, Metacomment, MetaComment, Meta-Comment, meta-comment, welcomed)!
        
        Doh... Just realized what people consider Meta-Comments will be ultra-subjective. Oh well... Thought that counts and all that I guess. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:Here's the article (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:55AM (#3078600) The host server is not having problems. I just saw the article with no lag at all.
      Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
      • Re:Here's the article (Score:1) by ergo98 ( 9391 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:46AM (#3079433) Homepage Journal

        You're posting that almost two hours after the article was posted, when the Slashdot effect has subsided greatly. When the article was originally posted, I couldn't connect for numerous tries. Perhaps the mirrors should have a timeout on them.

        Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Here's the article (Score:1) by Kallahar ( 227430 ) writes: Alter Relationship <kallahar@quickwired.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:06AM (#3078265) Homepage You must not know megatokyo, they can handle a slashdotting standing on their head!
  
  But good thought, I hate to miss an article when a site gets overloaded...
  
  Travis
  Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Here's the article (Score:1) by thanq ( 321486 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:20AM (#3078794)

  (i've purchased chirstmas presents on christmas day. Yes, i am that pathetic.)

  I think a lot of people does that. Beside that, no one will know unless you tell them you got it on xmas day, so where's the problem? :)

  Now, have you ever ordered a xmas present on xmas day over the Internet? That's pathetic.

  Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• The same thing said differently (Score:1) by ragmana ( 562405 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @08:25PM (#3082956) I think a lot of posts here are missing the point of the rant. Perhaps my perception is skewed by having read Piro's previous rants about covering the site's costs; I've already got the background story to understand what he means. Let me both clarify and expand, if I may.
  
  We buy products because we like them, or we at least think we do. But, when we dislike the seller, we tend to project that dislike onto the product as well. Because we can financially hurt the seller through the product and capital used to sell it, it becomes the seller to us, in a way. By boycotting or destroying stores/merchandise we strike out at the seller by proxy. Animal rights activists douse furs in red paint, some people use Linux/AMD machines because they percieve a Wintel monopoly, etc... There can come a point where the product itself ceases to matter so much as who is selling it.
  
  This, I think Piro argues, and I would as well, relates to what happened to many web sites that switched from free site to paysite. Especially those sites that did so unexpectedly or on short order. People, rightly or wrongly, expected something that was free to continue to be so. If it suddenly comes at a price, with no added value for that price, people feel that something they once had was taken from them. It's not a matter of business on the internet in particular, or even of people being cheapskates. It's a matter of human psychology.
  
  Now, if I think someone took something from me, I'm going to dislike them. And if I project that dislike onto the product they sell, I'm less likely to buy it. If there are a lot of people like me, the product fails to sell and the seller goes under. QED.
  
  That said, the "swag model" a'la MT dodges this particular problem. They charge to cover their costs, but rather than taking something away they add value through sweet spinoff merchandise. The original free content reamins free, so long as the swag sells. (Please sell, swag. Sell like mad.) Penny Arcade is doing something similar with "Club PA" where donators get something extra. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/) These apporaches avoid the psychological pitfalls. In fact, their rants on the topic (in both PA and MT) may even play on psychology by humanizing the authors and engendering favorable feelings (which might also transfer onto the product).
  
  And if the MT swag and book does not sell well enough and the site dies, I will sit in a snowbank and cry. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:5, Insightful) by Bill the Cat ( 19523 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:42AM (#3077360) I think people used that arguement when cable TV was in its infancy.

Offer people a good product, at the price the market is willing to bear, and they will buy it. Share twitter facebook linkedin

• Obviousness (Score:3, Insightful) by OblongPlatypus ( 233746 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:22AM (#3077582) "Offer people a good product, at the price the market is willing to bear, and they will buy it."
  
  Um... well, obviously. The question here is more about whether the market is willing to bear any viable price at all. --
  -- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide -- Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Obviousness (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:33AM (#3078445) Did you mod this up with your second account? You should have chosen a more appropriate moderation than 'Insightful.' See you in meta-moderation! Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:5, Insightful) by Shotgun ( 30919 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:28AM (#3077612) I think people used that arguement when cable TV was in its infancy.
  
  Ummm..No. The draw for cable TV in its infancy was watching movies without commercials (HBO), and get more than the 3 broadcast networks (NBC, ABC, CBS). Cable TV offered value above and beyond broadcast TV that I lusted for but never attained as a child. (Now that I'm grown, I don't sit still long enough to watch TV 8*)
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:23AM (#3077922) Dude,
    
    cable TV was successful LONG before HBO, Cinimax, and Showtime.
    
    Cable TV worked because it delivered a large number of static free TV channels. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:2) by Bill the Cat ( 19523 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:01AM (#3078234) So let's see the website operators, portals, etc., start coming up with services offer value above and beyond the free Internet, just like HBO, MTV, and other pioneering cable channels. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:2) by curunir ( 98273 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:27AM (#3079295) Homepage Journal The problem with the analogy to cable was that there really was never any competition between providers in the cable tv space. People were presented with the option to either get cable or not.
      
      The internet is much more granular. If websites start coming up with a "value add" subscription service, people will be forced to choose which subscription services to subscribe to. The problem here is that people hate being nickeled and dimed. If there was an option where people could pay a blanket subscription fee and have access to a whole family of website's "value add" sections, they might choose it. But for an individual website to start charging, is going to be a difficult proposition.
      
      Unfortunately, there are already content providers doing this type of umbrella service. So anyone who tries to setup this kind of website network will have to compete with the AOL's and MSN's of the world...not exactly lightweight competitors. --
      "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!" Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:2) by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:42AM (#3078512) >> I think people used that arguement when cable TV was in its infancy.
    
    > Ummm..No. The draw for cable TV in its infancy was watching movies without commercials (HBO), and get more than the 3 broadcast networks (NBC, ABC, CBS). Cable TV offered value above and beyond broadcast TV that I lusted for but never attained as a child. (Now that I'm grown, I don't sit still long enough to watch TV 8*)
    
    And note that Pay TV was never given away (except as part of a clearly marked promotionals). That's Piro's main point: giving it away to build up an audience doesn't work because you get massive backlash when you try to introduce mandatory payment, expecially if you didn't give people signing up for free any warning that they might have to pay to keep getting it later on.
    
    Chris Mattern Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:1) by fferreres ( 525414 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:52AM (#3079054) What makes you think paid sites will not offer better and greater stuff that you value, so that the price is ok? I think people will pay what they value, if it sells for a pair price AND (BIG AND) you can't pirate it. People like pirating, they don't give a damn about company A or B (in general). They know they aren't the ones making the world so unfair so "fix the world first, then judge me". It's my impression, i in no way would endorse piracy. In fact, i think piracy does not always harm company A but in fact may help it kill company B (ex: if MS Office couldn't be pirated, it would have been used less, and some other companies would have had an income). --
    unfinished: (adj.) Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:2) by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) writes: Alter Relationship <scott@alfter.us> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:11AM (#3079193) Homepage Journal

    I think people used that arguement when cable TV was in its infancy.

    Ummm..No. The draw for cable TV in its infancy was watching movies without commercials (HBO), and get more than the 3 broadcast networks (NBC, ABC, CBS).

    Considering that cable's been around longer than HBO and such, I don't think that was the motivation behind setting up the first cable systems. I thought it was more about being able to supply a better signal than you would be able to get yourself...the cable company would set up several antennas in a central location, each aimed at a different transmitting tower, and put the received signals out on its own network. It saved you the fuss of making sure your antenna was pointed in the right direction and could sometimes snag extra channels that you couldn't reliably pull in on your own. (The "CA" in "CATV" means "community antenna," not "cable.") It also made subscription-based TV possible, but that didn't happen until later.

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:1) by renderhead ( 206057 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Saturday March 02, 2002 @07:23AM (#3098476) Continuing down this train of thought, I'd say that paying for cable TV is more comparable to paying for broadband internet access. Sure, you can use your rabbit-ears antenna if you want and not pay a dime, but you're only getting a few channels at best. Similarly, you could (until recently) get NetZero or some similar free web access at no charge, but you were limited to 56k connections, shakey connections, and ad windows.
      
      

      It's when you start charging for specific content that the analogy breaks down. Only a handful of "premium" television channels charge for access specifically to their own content. They have the advantage of being the only options offered by your local cable provider. However, as Piro reminded us, all websites are equally accessible. There is no HBO or Showtime of the web, by which I mean sites that provide content that is in demand but unavailable anywhere else to the extent that people would happily start paying even though they are used to getting it free.
      
      

      The only business model that's been successful in this regard has been porn. Why? Because the web is the safest, most anonymous way to access it. With normal movies or magazines, nobody's embarrassed to buy them from the store, so the Web is competing with traditional media for customers. With porn, anybody can access XXX content from the privacy of their own home, and they are often willing to pay $20-$30 a month for that luxury. Until the web can provide content across the board that is of comparable quality AND easier to access than traditional media, they won't find as many paying customers as they dream of having.

      --
      I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.

      -RenderHead

      Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • HBO? The Z channel! (Score:1) by aquarian ( 134728 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @09:17AM (#3080232) The original attraction of cable was to be able to watch near-first-run and "R" rated movies at home, at all! This was back in the 70s, before VCRs! The first cable movie channel I'm aware of was the "Z" channel, around '75 or '76. It was a pretty big deal to sneak over to someone's house when their parents weren't home, to watch an "R" rated movie like "Rocky." Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:1) by geekoid ( 135745 ) writes: Alter Relationship <dadinportland&yahoo,com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @12:09PM (#3081440) Homepage Journal I'll tell why cable took off, porn.
    When ON tv came out I believe the first cable company, it had a box that sat on your tv, if you wanted to watch the movie the where playing, you turned the big knob to ON tv.
    I was about 13 when we got this, the first time I turned it on and watched the pretty lady wrap her lips around some guys unit, I was hooked.
    Then cable channels started arriving, the big selling point NO censorship.That change pretty quickly, but for a while is was a boys wet dream, literally...
    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:2) by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:09PM (#3082348) Homepage "The draw for cable TV in its infancy was watching movies without commercials (HBO), and get more than the 3 broadcast networks (NBC, ABC, CBS). Cable TV offered value above and beyond broadcast TV that I lusted for but never attained as a child. (Now that I'm grown, I don't sit still long enough to watch TV 8*)"
    
    Actually the draw for cable TV in its infancy was to simply get broadcast television to areas that couldn't get television.
    
    This happened in the 50's, not the 70's as you seem to imply.
    
    I should know, I grew up in a town in Pennsylvania that was one of the first to get cable TV.
    
    There were 3 (count 'em) channels, and at some point I remember "educational TV" being put on. I think it was a forerunner of PBS. Later, they expanded the dial to fill up VHF positions 2-13. And it was that way until the mid-80's.
    
    Its funny to think the "scrambling" employed by cable companies for HBO when it came out was to pick a frequency in between 6 & 7 where most tuners couldn't tune (remember, this was the analog days). Depending on your TV, you could simply fine tune channel 6 until you got HBO, or there were home-brew hacks to your tuner that people swore would work. I don't know, my parents would never let me experiment with the color TV.
    
    The point is that cable TV was expensive in those days ($10/month. Holy cow...this was when a brand new car was $3,000), but if you wanted TV you paid for cable.
    
    But believe me, the commercials were there. --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:1) by Vajsvarana ( 238818 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:56AM (#3077765) > I think people used that arguement when cable TV was in its infancy.
  
  And that's exactly why cable TV failed in 95% of the countries :))) Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:3, Interesting) by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:53AM (#3078164) Homepage
  • Offer people a good product, at the price the market is willing to bear, and they will buy it.

  Unless there's an equally slick and well packaged alternative available for free exactly one click away. Been on the 'net recently? It simply doesn't map well to any other model or analogy: there's a very low cost of entry for suppliers, no expectation of payment by consumers, and it's a transparent market, so you can't obfuscate your charges like long distance phone companies do. ;-)

  The only analogy that springs to mind is a huge and ongoing flea market, in one massive field, with free admission for everyone. Unless you are the only seller with shinola, and everyone else is selling shit, you can't charge, because your customers will just wander off. Hell, even if you are the only one selling genuine shinola, there's so many other stalls giving away "shinola-like" products that your customers might just wander off and never find their way back.

  What's my solution? Give up trying to make money on the 'net, stupid. But hell, as long as greedy and ignorant venture capitalists are prepared to throw good money after bad in wonderful follies like Slashdot, I'm happy to go to their stall. When it bows to the inevitable and shuts up shop (or starts charging, which is effectively the same), there will still be plenty of other equally daft vendors opening up free stalls. And if there isn't, well, I was never paying anything, so I haven't lost anything, other than my investment in whoring karma.

  People who say that we should expect to pay to support sites like Slashdot are rather missing the point. The whole model of commercial sites is doomed, unless they're genuine retaillers like Amazon. High quality non-retail sites are simply fuckedcompanies from the get-go, and the sooner we all admit that (quietely), the sooner we can get back to lapping up the benefits of spending money from rich, greedy, ignorant venture capitalists, and enjoying the lovely short lived ride. It's going to be over soon, and you and I (if we're being honest) just aren't going to pay for another go on it.

  --
  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:1) by coldtone ( 98189 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:44AM (#3078979) What's my solution? Give up trying to make money on the 'net, stupid.
    Another solution is to only offer stuff for free that will always be free, and then introduce new pay side of the site with additional features. I agree that moving a free service to a pay service is suicide. But if you only add new pay services, well that's different.
    
    A good example of this approach is site. The originally offered a basic site with the show streamed over the net. (But only at the same time it was on the radio.) The expanded site that costs bucks gives you access to an archive of shows and a ton of special features. They didn't lose anyone when they launched the expanded site because they didn't remove a thing from the original.
    
    Note to slashdot. If you need to start charging then only charge for some new cool features that people want. Just getting the site without ad's wont cut it. I wouldn't pay for it.
    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:1) by bla ( 96124 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:09AM (#3078276) the difference between cable tv and the internet as i see it is that when you buy cable, you buy the access to the various channels. once you've paid for that, there's just your monthly cable bill to said cable company. on the 'net, not only are we paying for access, we're also independently paying for content. it would be like paying CNN and MTV cheques each month on top of the basic cable service. no one's ever sat down and figured out what's "basic service" for the net (not to mention there's a hell of a lot more content on there than there are premium cable channels).

  megatokyo supports itself on ad revenue and merchandise. penny arcade adds donations and gives people who subscribe a little gift (or they used to...i think they've changed recently). but there's never been one day where you just suddenly connected and surprise! the site's pay, as what happened to piro to spark his rant in the first place. how many people do you know who kept their premium cable channels after the first 3 months free were over? i don't think i know anyone who did. and at least with that, you knew when the free period would run out.

  i think piro's right. respect is the currency of the net, and when you start charging for something that before you just traded for fun or whatever, people lose their respect for you. it's the little extras that you provide once people fork over however much cash they can that keeps the respect (for instance, penny arcade never demanded a minimum donation). piro's point was that people will put stuff on the net in return for having gotten stuff themselves. we'll either add cash, or we'll increase the content out there. but presumptuously demanding payments for content won't work.

  Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:1) by lunatik17 ( 91135 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:43PM (#3082079) Homepage on the 'net, not only are we paying for access, we're also independently paying for content. it would be like paying CNN and MTV cheques each month on top of the basic cable service.

    ...you mean like Premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime?

    --
    

    Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?

    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• The difference is, cable's packaged. (Score:1) by schmaltz ( 70977 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:42AM (#3078966) I think people used that arguement when cable TV was in its infancy.
  
  The cable company charges you a fixed price, which goes to pay not just the cable network and infrastructure necessary to deliver NTSC to the back of your tube. Part of that money also gets kicked over to the program producers (in the form of syndication fees, showing rentals, etc.), plus channels and producers sell commercials based on cable viewership.
  
  This model doesn't translate to the internet's current model. To adjust it to fit means your ISP would charge you more, and pay fractional pennies per hit to the websites you view.
  
  Darwinism would soon take over, imo. Sites that are interesting, compelling, or have just sheer gravity due to mass interest would receive dollars in exchange for serving their content to visitors.
  
  This has been proposed many times, but I doubt it's going to happen, because there's enough freebie/donated/volunteer websites filling many peoples' needs. That, or sites that survive otherwise are supported by their
  product or service.
  --
  Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma ... where's Siggy? Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:The difference is, cable's packaged. (Score:1) by fferreres ( 525414 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:58AM (#3079089) Don't you have premium channels there? --
    unfinished: (adj.) Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re: consumers won't pay for what was free (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:57AM (#3079087) Cable TV is much like Access to the Net.
  Not the content, stupid :)
  Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Effect in the Long Term (Score:5, Interesting) by yndrd ( 529288 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:42AM (#3077361) Homepage Interesting commentary in the rant about the concept of people not wanting to suddenly pay for something historically free. I wonder what will happen once the current generation of users accustomed to free content is replaced by a newer one more accustomed to fees? Will there be a more lucrative dot-com explosion then?

People will balk initially at paying for content, but I think they'll gradually get used to it. I remember being pissed that I'm paying for cable AND for the commercials they're sending me, but now I've just come to accept it.

Mind you, I think this is a lousy thing to happen, but I can't think of a way to thwart it. Our only hope are the sites spewing out free content to contrast with the ones providing it for cost. As long as these places go on, it will be hard to corner people into paying. Share twitter facebook linkedin

• Re:Effect in the Long Term (Score:2) by Bartmoss ( 16109 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:12AM (#3077543) Homepage Journal The difference is that the barrier of entry for web content is MUCH lower than for providing cable TV. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Communism (Score:1) by inKubus ( 199753 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:20AM (#3077575) Homepage Journal The 'net really is about communism. In trade for taking, everyone has to throw something in for it to be as good as it can possibly be. Of course, in an ideal world, everyone would have equal access to connection and other hardware resources also, so here again it is the person with the most money that wins. But, as the author pointed out, a good part of having a successful or popular website is respect. Respect translates into word of mouth advertising, which is the only way that a site can become more popular. Anyway, then he went into some details about translating respect into the resources needed to continue running a site. Not as a business, but as a Web Artist. (and really, if you aren't offering some SERVICE, you are a web artist).
  
  I like an idea like this:
  1. Everyone pays a tax on their internet connection. Say 1% of the total cost per year. On a 20/month line, it would be .20 per month in tax.
  
  2. All the tax money goes into a large pool. Think National Endowment for the Arts.
  
  3. Here's the tricky part, distributing the money to those who deserve it most (because they are respected): First, although businesses and for profit sites have to pay the tax, they don't get to decide where any of the money goes. After all, they are already making money. Second, anyone who is not contributing in some way to the community can't decide either. This is a little harsh, but necessary.
  
  So, follow me here, EVERYONE/THING on the internet pays the tax, but only people who contribute not-for-profit can get money back. Ok, now into distribution: The total amount of money is evenly divided by the number of sites. Each site gets to handle their share. Now, the people who run the sites have to "donate" their share to other sites. This can be done using a point system (like Slashdot). Any unused money goes back into the coffer and is evenly distributed for real to all the sites. Those sites which got more donations recieve that much more of the money.
  
  Of course, there are issues with this like slackers putting up one line and claiming to be a contributer, but those can be cleared up with intelligent webcrawlers and the like. It must be as unbureaucratic and as community oriented as possible. The organizing body would have to run some sort of website ranking sites by how many donations they have and in categories, and then at the end of the month, they all get rewarded for their command of respect by getting real money which can help cover their costs. It's really fair, encourages participation in the community, and separates commercial enterprise from the community as much as possible. It might even be cool to have a separate TLD for those sites (.nonprofit or .art or something). I'm sure there's other things you could do also, but this is just another one of my stream of consciousness posts so I won't start down that path now. --
  Cool! Amazing Toys. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Communism (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @01:53PM (#3081871) And it is failing for the same reason communism failed in the real world. Very few people are able to throw anything useful in, and everyone wants to take something out, making it less than worthwhile for the people who produce. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Communism (Score:1) by lifftchi ( 195622 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:04PM (#3082814) Homepage Journal it's an interesting idea. neat in theory. but there are a lot of practical aspects that make it untenable.
    
    start with language barriers. how is it possible to divide money equally when certain content is available only to certain people? should the pool be divided by language?
    
    who administers? international co-operation isn't run on anything remotely 'unbureaucratic' or 'community oriented.'
    
    there are other problems tied up with collection, private enterprise, bookkeeping, and so on, but the end result as i see it is that this is play-talk, and it doesn't matter that we might like it more than reality.
    
    this system as you propose it seems like the bbc or cbc, which operate based partially on equipmnet taxes, but that only works because there's no need to handle the messy dividing-up aspects. were it not for the fact that web is fundamentally peer-to-peer, there might be an elegant solution.
    
    by the way, this is hardly the first time piro's said something insightful. he's even used these themes of respect and implicit contract before. he's also written excellent, well-reasoned rants about fan culture, social interaction, and many other subjects. most otaku i know are extremely proud of him. . . he says what we would all like to, but louder and much, much clearer. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Communism (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Sunday March 03, 2002 @12:08PM (#3103114) I'm not sure if you noticed, but communism didn't work. It looks good on paper, but people aren't so into doing things for the common good. The reason free-market economies have flourished is that they rely on people to look out for #1, which causes competition. If you're going to be idealistic about the situation, why not consider an ideal free-market internet where consumers will flock to whoever provides the best and cheapest services? One where websites/businesses gain the respect of users by keeping services available for free? One where prices don't continually rise due to corporate cooperation (or rather, ganging-up)? Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Effect in the Long Term (Score:1) by ischemic ( 527226 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:20AM (#3077577)

  I think most people are willing to pay a reasonable amount for content (after all, it costs $$ to create good content and provide the bandwith to make it available). Further, $$ provides an additional motivation to provide high quality content.

  The problem as I see it is that it is too much of an irritation to actually pay for anything while you are surfing content. Can you imagine anyone plugging in a nickel every time they flipped stations on a TV? Or paying for unlimited use of a single station? I am unwilling to pay for any content on the web, since there is always lots out there that is 'close enough' in quality to what I need so there's no need to pay for the best stuff. The adequate is the enemy of the excellent here.

  If these costs could be incorporated into your ISP bill at a reasonable rate (maybe $1-$5 per month based on usage) and distributed based on your usage, then sites you enjoy could be rewarded for generating content and providing the bandwidth for it.

  Of course, such a scheme would need to be designed carefully to avoid privacy concerns, but I think this could be done by aggregating to the ISP level. It would be completely unacceptable to have site usage tracked back to individuals.

  This model moves the net closer to its real economic model, which is really based on content, not respect as suggested. I respect Linus quite a bit, but I don't tend to consume much content generated by him (not counting kernel sources). On the other hand, I consume quite a bit of content from Slashdot, although my respect level is generally not as high.

  Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Effect in the Long Term (Score:2) by Steveftoth ( 78419 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:56AM (#3078198) Homepage Why not use the money from the tax to instead build a server farm where people can then request space on for non-profit needs. Then you can host these 'non-profit' sites there. Instead of giving money to the artist to pay their fees, you just host it for them. This way it also makes it easier to determine which sites are popular and more deserving of support. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Effect in the Long Term (Score:2) by Matey-O ( 518004 ) writes: Alter Relationship <michaeljohnmiller@mSPAMsSPAMnSPAM.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:22AM (#3077584) Homepage Journal Agreed. I came up short once when somebody asked my what my Telco budget was. Not my Office budget, my personal telco budget.
  
  I stopped counting when it crested $200 a month. (Analog line, ISDN, Cellphone, Longdistance at the time)
  
  How many things do we pay for that we'd be hard pressed to give up if finances required it? would you give up your Tivo? Your Cable?
  
  Your Slashdot?
  
  --
  "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus." Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Problem with paying for content (Score:4, Interesting) by hendridm ( 302246 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:40AM (#3077669) Homepage I think many of us would be willing to pay a certain amount for services we perceive as useful. However, I doubt the average user can afford to pay, say, $6 per month to each site they use.
  
  I mean, I visit 4 sites regularly (daily basis) and probably around 5 sites once a week, and countless others whenever necessary. Using the Salon model, I would be paying $24 per month to access my favorite 4 sites. What about the other sites I visit? Do I need to pay full price just to access them once in awhile. Granted, their information is useful to me, but not $6/month useful. Now, I relize they all wouldn't charge $6, but I was just using that as an example of how the monthly cost for a few web sites can add up. I would imagine most of the big sites would charge around $3-$10 per month.
  
  That brings us to the problem - many of the sites I visit (Salon, Britannica, etc.) want you to pay a flat monthly rate for premium access. I would be more likely to pay on my favorite sites you could have the option of paying-per-use. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Exactly why we need micropayments (Score:2) by MattW ( 97290 ) writes: Alter Relationship <matt@ender.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:16AM (#3077883) Homepage Even Salon has no business charging $6. _$6_? When someone can pay $10/month for their internet access, they're supposed to pay 60% of that to read a couple articles? And Salon doesn't even need dead trees. The problem is that they need that much from their subscribers because a lot of people won't take time to sign up for $1, maybe.
    
    There's good news, though. Eventually, all things become more competitive. Once many sites are paid sites, you'll begin to see content aggregation solutions. You'll get Salon along with a hundred other sites for $10. You'll see a couple you love, a few you regularly pop into, and you'll then pay. The privacy concerns are going to be horrid, however. How do you centrally authenticate those page views without centrally tracking the user? Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:Exactly why we need micropayments (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:39AM (#3078059) Well, that $6 a month is misleading. You can get a whole year for $30. Besides at 20 cents a day, that's cheaper than a daily newspaper in most cities. Depending on what you look for in your daily news source, I'd say it's a bargain. Wasn't worth it to me, though-- I already subscribe to magazines that give me the same types of news I was getting from Salon (plus I can easily take the magazines on the bus). Salon also lost some of the key columnists that would have gotten my subscription and replaced them with hacks. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • I agree (Score:1) by hendridm ( 302246 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @10:29AM (#3080844) Homepage I agree with you, but I was trying to avoid saying that because I didn't want to get flamed with "They have every right to charge what they want for *their* content" and "If you don't like it, don't use it" comments. I think $6 a month for one site is rediculous too. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:Exactly why we need micropayments (Score:1) by veltyen ( 206345 ) writes: Alter Relationship <veltyen@gmail.cGINSBERGom minus poet> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:06PM (#3082156) For some reason the Porn industry is always one step ahead in content distribution. Must be the low profit margins and flexible morals.
      
      The model you are talking about is the model that the larger 'Adult verification Systems' use. You buy one access code for a whole slew of sites.
      
      From my own personal experience this model works quite well. While paying $40 for a single site seems a rip-off, paying $40 for an AVS ID that allows you to visit a couple of sites that you go to regularily, as well as a couple of thousand other sites that you would never pony up for upfront seems a much better deal.
      
      When it comes down to it, paying ${an amount} for access to a slew of news sites (theage.com.au, cnn.com etc) I wouldn't have a problem with. For another more relevant example paying 5 bucks or so for one of the consolidated comics sites I wouldn't have a problem with either. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
      • It works for cable (Score:2) by MattW ( 97290 ) writes: Alter Relationship <matt@ender.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:47PM (#3082469) Homepage And hey, this is exactly what we get when we buy cable tv -- especially digital cable or satellite with their umpteen billion channels. I have like 200 channels on my digital cable. It's insane. I barely watch any of them, let alone all of them -- but its easy enough to offer the whole package. Obviously, there's a slight distribution difference with cable TV vs the net, but not a big one, you're just peer to peer with their web server with IP, instead of paying a provider for a feed and being forced to watch a subset of what they choose to provide. Imagine if cable could carry 2^32 channels ;) Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
      • Re:Exactly why we need micropayments (Score:2) by cabbey ( 8697 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:10PM (#3082529) Homepage Not that I'm familiar with this AVSID thing you describe, but it sounds like premium Keenspot... except that half the stuff on keen sucks, so it's more like $45 for a dozen sites, for a year. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Problem with paying for content (Score:1) by goodEvans ( 112958 ) writes: Alter Relationship <devans AT airatlanta DOT ie> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:39AM (#3078058) Homepage I have seen this argument time and time again. Sure it costs a lot of money to run, say, Slashdot. And the advertisers aren't bringing in the bucks anymore. So, subscriptions are seen as the way to go, but if everyone charges $6 a month, then people balk at paying $60 a month just to look at ten sites. What is needed is a new way for websites to calculate their charges.
    
    How about this:
    
    Figure out your costs per month. Hosting, rent, beer money. Start your subscription service based on people paying a percentage of that figure. The more people that sign up, the less they pay (you would need to cap it at something reasonable until it takes off). That way you get friends telling other friends to sign up. If your monthly subscriptions start to go below what would be chargable to a credit card, give people the option of either paying $10 up front, or waiting until the $10 is used up before automatically debiting the card (send them an email every month, explaining the state of play).
    
    MT broke a million hits this month. Most people just read the front page every day. 1,000,000 hits / 28 days gives you 35,214 users. MT being the site it is, 70% of those are regulars (25000). 50 of those % agree that Piro and Largo deserve their money (12,500). Now you and I both know that Largo would like 12,500x$6 per month, but Piro knows that he wouldn't get it. However, if 12,500 people paid for 1/12500th of the operating costs+b33r money, then you might actually get them.
    
    Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Problem with paying for content (Score:2) by Aexia ( 517457 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:51AM (#3079483) However, I doubt the average user can afford to pay, say, $6 per month [salon.com] to each site they use.
    
    It's cheaper if you go for the longer subscriptions. It's $30 for a year($2.50/mo). I paid $50 for two years($2.08/mo) though I'm not sure if they offer that anymore.
    
    $50 is what I'd spend on a video game or going out to bars during the weekend. I think it's worth it. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • look at the RealOne model (Score:2) by jon_c ( 100593 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @02:28PM (#3082029) Homepage I may hate RealNetworks, but i think their 'RealOne' idea is going to be the future for making money on the net.
    
    The way it works is you have a flat monthly subscription fee, you get a player (RealOne player) and access to a there partner network. Already i've come acrose clips of video where i needed to subscribe to RealOne to be able to view, if 80% of the video clips on the .NET required a relativly cheap subscription it would become much more attrative.
    
    Consequently, the porn industry has been doing this successfuly for years now, and as they say; when looking for new ways to expliot media, look at what comes out of porn.
    
    -Jon --
    this is my sig. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Effect in the Long Term (Score:2) by renehollan ( 138013 ) writes: Alter Relationship <`rhollan' `at' `clearwire.net'> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @03:53AM (#3077743) Homepage Journal The poster above this one wrote, Offer people a good product, at the price the market is willing to bear, and they will buy it.

  And this is very true. There are services on the 'net that for which I hapilly pay: PayMyBills.com, for one, and they aren't exactly cheap ($10.95/month for 30 transactions, $0.50/transaction after that -- I think it's $1 or $2 more now, but my rate is grandfathered, and there are other plans available).

  What do I get for this $11? They provide me with a P.O. Box, scan my paper bills, email me notifications, allow me to pay online (via EFT or their cutting of a cheque from bank accounts to which I've given them access). They can handle on-line "smart bills", too, but this requires that they have access to your other on-line accounts. Having access to (some of) my bank accounts is enough -- all they could do is steal a months worth of expense $$$, but not screw up my other on-line service settings (I registered how many domains?!). Oh yeah, they can be instructed to pay certain bills regularly, or on-demand up to a certain amount. In short, they do a lot for that $11. While I'm not 100% satisified with their service, I'm satisfied enough to keep using it. Beats having to keep all those paper bill records, too (which was my primary reason for subscribing, actually).

  Compare this to other fee-based on-line services. A lot of them try to sell information, or entertainment, on a monthly-fee basis. The kind of information offered usually isn't worth the price, and, as for purchasing entertainment, I prefer a pay as you go model -- I must have spent $5000 on-line in 2001, mostly for electronic equipment, and the odd book (note: bn.com benefits from my boycott of Amazon.com due to their 1-click patent heavy-handedness)

  Now, PayMyBills was rather clever: they started charging me $3.95, then $5.95, then $6.95, and finally $10.95 a month. I suppose some would be irritated by this practice, and to some degree I was, but I'd say the service was worth $10 to $12 a month to me, so I stayed with them, and this latest price has been stable for a while. But, the important thing was that they weren't completely free to begin with (except for a trial period), so right off the bat, they got customers who were willing to pay. How much might be unknown, but it's the step from $0 to $(some small X) that's the biggest one in getting rid of free loaders. I'm sure that if they raise their prices too much, people will go back to paper statements, return envelopes, and stamps. The banks are starting to offer competition, but they generally don't want to deal with scanning paper bills.

  An area for growth here is magazine subscriptions. You know, I get EDN (well, that doesn't count, 'cause it's free for me), and Circuit Cellar Ink on paper. Sometimes one or two articles will be interesting. I usually toss the magazine after a week -- I used to archive "important" ones, but they just took up too much room. It would be nice if I could (a) see a synopsis of all the articles, (b) pay for just the ones I want to read, (and c) get a digital copy, perhaps a synopsis of all the articles I read on an end-of-year CD (for an extra fee). That's something for which I'd probably be willing to pay $10 a year plus $0.25 to $0.50 per complete article: basically half the price of a paper subscription for access, and the other half if I read all the articles.

  --
  You could've hired me. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Ads, Payments, Hoo Hah, etc. (Score:2) by ackthpt ( 218170 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:23AM (#3077926) Homepage Journal Ok, Lemme be the first to toss this out: Slashdot has been whispering about subscription service coming up where you can pay a nonminal fee to get ad free content. Neat? I don't think so, not the bit about paying, but about losing the cool ads. I can't speak for everyone, but I actually like those ThinkGeek ads and have put together a tidy list of things I'll buy once I have my taxes paid off.

  (I *really* want that THX sound system for a PC)

  I'd be willing to kick in a few bucks to prop up Slashdot, but as long as they don't have those horrible X10 pr0n cam or casino pop-under ads, I'm pretty cool with them, all I ask is don't make them gaudy, i.e. flashing, I keep a few extra windows open on the desktop just to drop over those, ads like that could be giving away gold by the pound and I wouldn't notice, because my first reflex to anything flashing is to bury it.

  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
  • Re:Ads, Payments, Hoo Hah, etc. (Score:2) by Gleef ( 86 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:42AM (#3078511) Homepage ackthpt writes:
    
    Slashdot has been whispering about subscription service coming up where you can pay a nonminal fee to get ad free content. Neat? I don't think so, not the bit about paying, but about losing the cool ads. I can't speak for everyone, but I actually like those ThinkGeek ads and have put together a tidy list of things I'll buy once I have my taxes paid off.
    
    A suggestion, Slashdot used to have a page which would show all the current banner ads and links to where they go. If they return that page then you would be able to pay for the extra speed of an ad-free site, but still have access to the information in the ads. Premium service would mean you could see the ads on your terms rather than ODSN's.
    
    I found that page to be quite useful at times. For example, I wanted a copy of Penguin Computing's banner ad featuring a giant Tux strolling through Redmond, but didn't want to wonder when the banner would appear on my page. --
    
    ----
    Open mind, insert foot. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
    • Re:Ads, Payments, Hoo Hah, etc. (Score:1) by psergiu ( 67614 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @09:39PM (#3083091) Mod parent up !!! --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Effect in the Long Term (Score:2) by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:22AM (#3079260) Journal People will balk initially at paying for content, but I think they'll gradually get used to it. I remember being pissed that I'm paying for cable AND for the commercials they're sending me, but now I've just come to accept it.
  
  I don't know about this. Some sites (Megatokyo, MacHall, Salon, and RPG World) I would pay for. Not $6/mo each, mind you, but they do provide quality content, and they are sites that (with the exception of Salon, whose good articles are all available to paid subscribers only) I visit regularly and would like to support, even if only in principle. This, however, presumes that I have money, which I don't, otherwise I would donate or buy 'fanboy merch'.
  
  The thing is, most people are greedy, and, as Piro said, seem to think that once something is free, it's their God Given Right to keep getting it for free. Some people will pay more for added value (say, if I, as a subscriber, could buy limited-edition Megatokyo or MacHall prints, get fanboy swag at a discount, or get to buy/read stuff ahead of time), but very few people will pay for Salon's service after getting it all for free, even if it -is- worth it, because it once was free. Nevermind that circumstances have changed, and ad revenue has declined, and nevermind that the service might actually be worth it (I will pay Salon $10/mo before I give Blue Mountain a penny).
  
  Personally, I think more websites should support things like paypal and so on. Oddly, most (comic) sites are -not- doing this, even shifting -away- from this, preferring to rely on revenues from merch sales and so on. Me, I'd rather throw $2 at them via paypal instead of buying a $15 shirt that they only make $2 profit from anyway. Maybe I'll buy a shirt once, but I'm not going to buy one every month, and I'd like to keep supporting Megatokyo and MacHall indefinitely.
  
  After all, $2 won't get me anything, but if all the MacHall fans out there threw $2 at Ian, maybe he could finally get a G4 that could play Black and White on a level with Micah's machine. Problem is, most people can't or won't. I mean, $2 is not that much, but a lot of people don't have credit cards, don't have paypal, don't want to set them up, etc. This is likely why Penny Arcade's donation box didn't work too well, or at least, why they discontinued it. If every MT/PA fan donated $2/mo, these guys could have lived like kings, but most people didn't care, were too lazy, or just couldn't (like me).
  
  Oh well. It'll come around sooner or later. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
  
  --Dan Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin
• Re:Effect in the Long Term (Score:2) by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) writes: Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:16PM (#3082373) Homepage " I remember being pissed that I'm paying for cable AND for the commercials they're sending me, but now I've just come to accept it."
  
  This will have a major impact on the web that you may not be obvious.
  
  Right now, in a day you might surf to 10-100 web sites. Why? Well, because its easy and free.
  
  But imagine a web where every site required $5-$10/month to view.
  
  How many could you afford? 1? 5? 10? 100?
  
  I doubt most people would pay for more than 2. And if the web consists of 2 "channels", what's the point? I might as well join AOL; they at least have a community, and everything doesn't cost me money (well, once I'm past the $20/month).
  
  Its unlikely this type of pay-per-web will happen because it removes the critical mass of information that makes the web useful and usable.
  
  And as long as fairly good information exists for "free", there is not paying market for "better" information.
  
  I just dont' see a viable way to charge on the net as more than a niche. ConsumerReports.org can do it because they have compelling information outside of the .org site, so the web serves as a mobile version of the magazine. But not many sites will have this sort of resource.
  
  The web will change, but I don't think it will be in the direction you seem to think it will. I suspect anybody who claims to know is lying. --
  You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

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Apple Wins the 2002 Technical Grammy Award

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Well... The main reason that syndication doesn't happen much to web comics is either because the syndicates want things to be very 'public oriented' which PA and other comics, such as Sinfest, sorta aren't. Everyone likes them, but no one really wants their kids reading them. The other thing would just be that the comics don't want to censor themselves to make money. Most people have another job (take Piro over at Megatokyo, he has a day job and draws the comic every monday wednesday and friday.) The webcomic-folk (for the most part) do the whole shpiel because they like doing it, not because they want to make loads and loads of money from it. Heh.... Well, you've found one of the other readers from before keenspace... Me. Yeah, we always have trouble getting ian to update and such, but often college gets in the way a bit. We're moving to Machall.com soon, with much better scripts and such than what we've got a keenspace, so things should run smoother. So Matt actually got a camera and was able to get the Crocodile Hunter there to annoy your brother? ;) -MuShoo (Mac Hall Webmaster)