Slashdot Mirror
Piro On Why .Coms Don't Work
cabbey writes: "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. (archive link to the rant in question, it's below the comic. ;) "
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.
Considering one of the main points Piro is trying to make about the value of respect for a site/company/individual, and how poorly this has been strongarmed into squeezing money out of customers, in particular for an originally free service. Considering the pay services for Slashdot in the works, I find this posting ironic to say the least.
/. t shirts on thinkgeek, how about some cool items. An engraved /. (the symbol) metal coffe mug? A swiss army knife with green handle and inlayed /. symbol? People are a lot more willing to give money if they are under the impressions they are gaining something, in particular something physical for their money. SLashdot should take note.
Megatokyo has my respect, big time. I have at least 6 shirts of there's, two others I gave the girlfriend, and as soon as Im gainfully employed again, Im buying that 'F33r my l33t n3k1d sk1llz' boxer shorts. They've made some money off of me, and they earned it. I just wished it was enough for them to work full time; daily updates to megatokyo would be reason for me to leap out of bed with a smile on my face each and every morning.
Perhaps Slashdot could do something similiar? Instead of the subscription service, some merchandizing would be better. Instead of the lame
Toodles D. Clown
Well, here we go. I visit Megatokyo daily, and I both cringed and laughed when I saw a full story here on Slashdot about the rant.
From what I understand, Piro (et al.) have refused to put a donations button on their site, instead trying to "make it commercially" on their own. At the moment, that takes the form of getting people to buy their art in the form of t-shirts and the like.
But Piro (et al.), from my understanding, are also gearing up for a printed work; Taking the archival strips and trying to find a publisher.
While more power to them, it's interesting that they will be charging for what they have given away for free. :)
Notably, they've reduced the resolution of the archival artwork online. Ostensibly to reduce bandwidth fees. (I do believe that, somewhat, but it also has the effect of rendering the archival images somewhat pixelated and not very printable.) In response, a number of the Megatokyo community members have mirrored the original strips in their original resolution, however that won't help with the new strips coming online.
While they are trying to be more commercial (by their own insistance), there has been a fair amount of "drama" in some rants and IRC talk from Piro's camp, which at times appears, in my opinion, to be less than professional (which is fine if you're not trying to be a commercial entity).
Inclusive in this angst is talk about their rising monthly costs. I can only imagine what a good Slashdotting will do for Piro's blood pressure. Plus the influx of new members on the site and message board will surely grind their server to a halt and keep their bandwidth peaked.
By not accepting donations, (and by modifying his site so it incidentally supports his move toward being a commercial entity) he may be biting the hand that wants to feed him (but can't afford $20 t-shirts). I hope he makes it commercially in the next few days before the bandwidth fees hit him. :)
I love the art, style and story at Megatokyo. I wish them well, whether they choose to be commercial or not. And yes, I would buy a softcover printed Megatokyo book/anthology.
Slashdot: Everything in Moderation, including Moderation itself.
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.
The only thing worse than Jon Katz is Piro.
Anyway - there was an internet boom BECAUSE of the stock market. The new technology that became available to a new market played a big part, but it all happened because of the stock market. Investors saw an opportunity to get in on the ground floor (ie. buy low) of a company in a new marketplace that had a potential of becoming "the next Microsoft" - in other words, a monopoly. Everyone thought Netscape was going to be the next Microsoft. Then Yahoo. Then Ebay. Then Amazon. Then Macromedia. Then Real. The money flowed into these companies, and they bought equipment, and people, and that sparked investment in the more sensible computer and software companies. The business model was: get dominant marketshare by dumping the product for free, then when the competition was murdered, charge em up the nose for the service because you're the only game in town. In the interim, revenue was stopgapped by ads. But in the long run, when it appeared that the only "next Microsoft" that would appear was. . . Microsoft, I think it became pretty obvious to a lot of people that internet stocks were overinflated.
As the internet content became more saturated with ads, and more vertical to corporate interests, and more eyeballs got funnelled to less and less sources - it all became less and less compelling for the vast majority of net newcomers. You and I, the DSL subscribers, the tech workers, the geeks, didn't really notice much of a change, other than - our nongeek brother in law who used to email us every day, now has discontinued his AOL account because he can't download free music on Napster anymore, or all the cool little independent sites had shut down because they couldn't afford to stay up anymore. This was all secondary to the cessation of flow of investment dollars as all the loans based on them started coming due. THAT is why the dotcom boom went bust. The content issue was merely a side effect.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.