Slashdot Mirror
Announcing Slashdot Subscriptions
To understand why the system works like it does, you need to first understand that Slashdot is about to start accepting new ad formats. The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here. We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer. But we want to give you an option to see Slashdot without these ads. Second, you need to understand that Slashdot readers fall into a variety of types, and charging the same flat fee just isn't possible.
Slashdot subscriptions will essentially let you buy a thousand pages to be viewed without banner ads. And you will have some flexibility to decide what types of pages (Comments, Articles, The Homepage) you want ads removed from, and what types of pages you just want to see the ads.
The rates are currently set at $5 per 1000 pages. To put this into perspective, $20 (typical magazine subscription) will be enough pages for 82% of our readers to view Slashdot without ads for a year. Another 15% will need to spend $5 a month to accomplish the same thing. 3% of our readers would need to spend more than $5 a month- but they could choose to see ads on comments and in almost every case, still pay around $5 a month. (As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%)
We realize that this system is more complex, but Slashdot has a third of a million readers per day with different reading habits, and this is the best way to accomodate everyone fairly.
Currently we only accept payment via paypal. It was simply easy and fast. We intend to offer other options as time permits and readers request.
Eventually we intend to offer additional features to subscribers. Exactly what those plums are remains to be decided: Access to the rejected submissions bin? A 'Gold Star' in your comments header? Karma? (I think that would be hilarious) We really don't know. We'll decide and implement what makes sense as we have time to do it.
We are doing our best to learn from the mistakes made by other sites that have started charging for subscriptions. We won't create subscriber only features that cost more to maintain than they generate. But we do need support from you if we are to continue. So anyway, here's that link again if you forgot it ;)
Just sell low UIDs. That'll raise you lots of money. Seriously, though, go nuts. Just don't be surprised when every signature links to instructions on using webwasher/adbuster/and so on to block out each and every comment. Or when somebody writes a perl script to grab slashdot every hour, parse out all the ads, and post it somewhere else, like freeslashdot.org or something.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I'll stick to the ads... as long as there are no pop-ups, pop-unders and anything that pops... and especially NO X-10 ADS!!! :)
People have been saying forever that someone was going to do a site with some form of a micropayment system. It's interesting to see /. taking the lead here. I really have to wonder though, how many people are bothered by the ads on /. ? Quite a few of the people here read through a junkbuster proxy of one form or another, so such things never even appear. Hopefully there isn't an effort to push people in the way of paying (more annoying ads, etc). Because that would be truly unfortunate.
Best of luck to you, but I really don't expect to see that you will have much for sales.
Would you do it for some scoobie crack?
Heck, I've gotten enough enjoyment and such from reading Slashdot over the past few years, thats its worth it to me. Just paid my $20.
I have no problem with a subscription based /. (so long as it can still be got for free). I would pay $5 to see ad-free /. I might even pay more. We'll see how long 1000 pages lasts. However, I do not like doing business with PayPal. Please, ditch PayPal and give me an alternative!
Rhapsody in Numbers
The subscription model is permeating everywhere. It's sad, and disappointing to have to choose to pay a small fee for the hundreds of websites I visit (and fork out literally hundreds upon hundreds of dollars) or to have to sit here and view large obnoxious ads.
Gee, I wonder what I'll do?
Let's try browsing with graphics turned off. *click* Ahh.. better.
I can already see thousands of "free everything" advocates typing angrily away at their keyboards. Running a popular site costs money, and most sites are realizing that ads are not supported. I have come to accept subscriptions as a normal part of better sites these days, although I only actually subscribe to a few of them. As useful as Slashdot is, it'll probably be well worth the while.
Also keep in mind that unlike many subscription sites, Slashdot is not talking about premium content for major articles (like Salon or IGN), only little bonuses for subscribers, which is fair enough. I'll wait until the ads actually start appearing to make up my mind, but let's not flame Slashdot for coming in line with the almost defacto practice that today's Internet economy demands.
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
I can see paying X dollars to surf without ads. A simple flat rate.
But of I have to start thinking "should I hit reload and waste a page view", it will make using Slashdot very awkward.
Time to install junkbuster
Okay various News services charge for *CONTENT* what exactly is Slashdot charging for? *Links to OTHERS content*. Am I the only one that finds this a little perverse? Slashdot survives on it's users to submit links, and others to create the content.
So, what we have here is this paradoxal existence: Charge the people that keep your site running and full of content.
Am I the only one that has a problem with this?
"Madness and Genius are separated solely by Degrees of Success." -Unknown
After reading about how much PayPal sucks on Slashdot, I don't think I'll be paying for any kind of subscription until there is another option available. PayPal isn't FDIC insured, isn't a real bank, and is being investigated and sued by various states and organizations.. I think I'll wait before handing over my credit card information to a potentially untrustworthy company.
As for the Subscriptions, well, I hope things work out, this could be really good for Slashdot, or really bad. I biggest concern is since I've read that only a small percent of Slashdot readers post and read articles, that means the majority only uses Slashdot as a proxy for news. If the banner ads start to annoy them, they'll start going straight to the new source.. Oh well, only time will tell, Good luck Slashdot team.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
We have all seen the VA Software annual and quarterly reports.
Slashdot is in fact profitable, very profitable.
So don't give us these lies.
What you mean is Slashdot won't be able to pay Larry Augustins ridiculous CEO salary without mega ads.
Granted Slashdot was the ONLY profitable part of VA.
So yes VA is losing money like crazy.
But Slashdot itself is plenty profitable, to the tune of several mil.
So stop with the lies.
Oh and pathetic mod, go look it up on the stock site of your choice before you mod this down.
Don't worry, the Slashdot staff will mod it down anyways, so save your karma for a butt sex comment or something.
I think what might come of this is a tighter ship splintering off into smaller, private Slashdot sites. For example, not to slag all the people who put thought into their posts, but a private Slashdot just including my friends and others by introduction would be great for me--less traffic, so I could actually read all the posts, and less noise, so I would bother.
Just a few random thoughts... I appreciate what Slashdot has been and hope it doesn't lose its shine.
...is that under this model, those who contribute to slashdot the most, and make the site what it is, are forced to pay the most.
/. community.
I think there should possibly be a "positive-discussion" discount, where if you post modded-up comments, you get more allowed page views. After all, you are helping the
I see the need for the system, I know you guys need to stay open, and I do understand that people like myself use up a lot of bandwidth on here, but I personally would really like to see some sort of reward for positively contributing to the site.
I agree. I think the world need to change it's attitude about paying for online content/software, you don't pay because you can't steal it or they force you to or you get a whole lot more by putting money into it, you pay because you support people who do cool smart things, like Slashdot. Sort of a "put your money where your mouth is" deal.
IMHO Slashdot deserves a little cash, all. Face it. Open Source doesn't have a whole lot of alliances these days, we need to make the ones we have strong.
spacefem.com
What kind of customer support will slashdot offer? What happens when there's a DOS attack or a slashbug and I can't access the site when I need it? With traditional publications, I have someone's ear to chew when the periodical isn't delivered as promised. What kind of assurances can slashdot give me that I'll get something for my money?
Consider that if we all used an effective ad blocker, that'd be the end of adverts as an effective means of funding this site. And that'd mean we all pay, or byebye slash dot.
Or don't you realize that bandwidth doesnt grow on trees.
But it's not clear what motivation this plan is meant to appeal to. Get rid of banners? What do I care? I, and probably most readers, simply filter them out mentally unless they're so unbelievably annoying (X10, Shoot The Monkey) that I stop reading the site. Loading time might be an issue for some sites, but for loading even a moderate Slashdot page, the extra time to load a banner is insignificant noise relative to however trolls have mangaed to screw up the rendering that day. I was on a 28k modem connection at home until recently and banners were a non-issue. And the people who really hate them already block them, although I bet the number who really do that is even smaller than the number who actually bothered to write in about the Microsoft settlement.
If the plan is to get readers to support the site out of altruism they should say that. (Or at least realize it.) But if Rob and Jeff are really trying to provide added value for the price, they need to come up with something better to offer. Or take away something from the free side.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Okay guys. If you're really the libertarian, open source, _fair_use_ folks you claim to be, then make Slashdot the most wildly successful, profitable, FOR FEE site on the net.
You can't tell me you life hasn't been changed (for better or worse) by these guys. $5 a month is a _pittance_. You can't buy LUNCH for $5.
_MY_ 'checks in the mail'
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I for one completely understand and agree with Slashdot for doing this. After all, we all sneer at those other bandwidth/machine-deficient websites who can't handle the slashdot effect, but we rarely think about the fact that Slashdot has to handle the slashdot effect 24x7. That sort of bandwidth and machine-power cost money, a lot of money. The only way a popular website can recoup its costs are through advertising OR subscriptions. We, the users of slashdot are fortunate enough to at least have the OPTION of which we want. Personally, I'll take advertisements, because quite frankly I actually like and sometimes click on them. Unlike other websites, slashdot advertisements are geared toward me and present me with things I'd like to buy or wish I could buy. I probably won't even filter them, unless they start using popups that are really annoying (never seen a good popup ad).
If this happens with monetary incentives, many people will DEFINITELY pull the old Karma-whoring tricks like a single user using multiple freely registered accounts to alternate posting and modding each other until one of those accounts hits the Karma discount level. There are other techniques. Smart people, these /. readers; they'll rise to the challenge.
After This aand a few rather horific stories including payapal being sued by like 13 states for running an unregistered banking business I wonder why they chose payapl?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The rates are currently set at $5 per 1000 pages. To put this into perspective, $20 (typical magazine subscription) will be enough pages for 82% of our readers to view Slashdot without ads for a year. Another 15% will need to spend $5 a month to accomplish the same thing. 3% of our readers would need to spend more than $5 a month- but they could choose to see ads on comments and in almost every case, still pay around $5 a month. (As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%)
It;s the poster who make Slashdot what it is. Your fee setup essentially penalizes those people. Without the posters, Slashdot would have nothing to read!
I'd much prefer a monthly fee subscription setup rather than the $5 per 1000 pages.
As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%
So you're saying that the very people who make slashdot worth reading are the ones who will have to pay most? Isn't this...backwards?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
People who want something for nothing are usually the first to bitch and moan when the entity providing that something for nothing is no longer able to survive due to lack of cash flow.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
What about the people from here, you know, the ones that help Slashdot the most by submitting the stories you publish. We get any bonus for that?
What about the people that put in a lot of comments, to make the stories have more depth or meaning? Do we get something besides an insult by a slashdot author to the people that indirectly line his wallet??
I've put a lot of time and effort into slashdot, is that gonna matter at all?? I try to help the site become more than a "regurgitated stories" site, but I have to pay to avoid ads?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
You can't make money selling a metered resource at a flat rate. Hence, the dot-com crash.
Now, I am faced with an ethical question. For over a year I have been using WebWasher to filter out all the ads from the internet (it catches over 99% of them, including popups and cnet style big-ass-in-your-face ads).
:)
Now, slashdot offers a way for me to support their site, but at the same time tells me that their ads are shifting to annoy-ware. So, do I just continue to block the ads, or try a free site or whatever, or do I pay slashdot?
While people think the internet is free, it isn't. SOMEONE pays. In this case, it's the company that controls slashdot. I value having this site up on the net, and I value all the time and effort that has gone into keeping everything running and happy.
I've decided, I'll keep blocking with webwasher but I'll also donate my $5. Think about it, $5 for something you check twice a day is worth the cost of a single lunch.
P.S. I'd love to see some recognition to people who donate though, a little star would be cool and discourage AC's
I agree, it has to be a flat rate or I'm just not interested.
When Slashdot originally brought up the idea of a subscription I thought to myself that it would be one of the few sites to get money from me. I read it often and get a lot out of it so I don't have any problem parting with cash. But as soon as there's a meter attached I feel like I'm on the clock, that there's a price to following just one more comment or reading a questionable story.
A flat rate of $20/year would be fine (even more than that), but anything metered I'm just not interested in. If the large ads begin to annoy me I'll visit less or work around them.
mod_gzip works wonders on Slash based sites, so I have no idea why they don't use it here.
The typical Slash home page is about 50K or more. mod_gzip literally gets it down to less than 6K!
It would literally cut their bandwidth costs by more than half!
Of course, they may need another server or two, but it would pay for itself quickly.
"...Slashdot, the bastion of free software..."
To point out the obvious, free as in speech.
(yeah, whoring for karma...)
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Exactly. For every piece of information being sold, there is someone in the world willing to give it to you for free. You just have to find that person.
About 3/4ths of the slashdot articles that interest me I have already seen on blogs 1-7 days earlier. Some of this is due to the review period of submitted links, and part of it is that sometimes a link is submitted multiple times before it is accepted. Regardless, if slashdot closed tomorrow, I would still get my nerd news from other sources. What's special about slashdot is that I can post comments and get modded down. If slashdot dies, blame it on the people who still want information to be free. We will always exist in small groups and keep the information flowing.
Just a question, .com would be better suited!
Are you on crack? See my previous rant about K5. The quality of postings over there are just horrible. For example, see the current front-page story about female curcumcision. Technology and culture from the trenches my ass.
I have a 3-digit K5 uid, but I am done with that place. I simply don't have the time to go through the submissions bin and give a -1 to all of the crap that is constantly in there.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
"Comments are owned by the Poster."
/. worth reading.
/.. I know we don't have a right to the forum that Taco et al are providing for us. We post our thoughts here freely, and get back more ideas than we give, also for free. And if ads, subscriptions or whatever are needed to cover the costs, so be it.
/. would remain a great site.
And the comments are what make
Something feels wrong here. I know it costs a lot of money to run
I think three main things are behind my unease. One is that my cheese is being moved. Secondly, VA/OSDN are for-profit. If subscriptions are successful, and they get more than they need, will the subscriptions be extended? Or will Taco, Hemos, ESR & Larry Augustin pocket the money? Thirdly, the posters are being asked to pay more than the lurkers. Hello? The people that make the site what it is have to pay more than those who merely use it? That seems wrong. If I could trade in 25 of my 50 karma for a hundred page views I think I would. Then I could keep posting witty and insightful comments, and
--
E_NOSIG
yes we all work for free with donated bandwidth and servers. *cough*
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
Umm, the dot com crash happened because the 'flat rate' was generally '0', not because they had a flat rate for a metered resource. Sorry to *ahem* burst your bubble.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I dunno about pay-per-page on slashdot, but I'd certainly be willing to pay for sourceforge.
If you added something to user info showing us how many pages we've viewed recently, it would help us decide. (And yes, I'm not a paypal fan either...)
If screen-names can now be tied to genuine paid-for products (page views), maybe the login's should be a bit more secure than plain-text. This means no more "You can automatically login by clicking This Link and Bookmarking the resulting page. This is totally insecure, but very convenient." I wouldn't pay anything until some sort of login encryption gets put into use.
That said, let me also add that I think this is yet another example of one of the major flaws of Free software - its utter inability to be self-sufficient and sustainable. Ironically, as Free software (and content, in Slashdot's case) grows more and more popular, it becomes less and less able to remain viable under the "Free" model.
People will give away their time, as long as they get to control how much, and on what. That's why small projects like Apache succeed, and why toy projects like Mozilla are still kicking around (but not really making any mainstream noise). But, when a project's popularity demands a person's full attention, they're suddenly faced with a decision: abandon the project, or try to make money from it.
I value Slashdot. Do I value it enough to pay for it? Frankly, yes. However, I won't be forking over any cash until they offer more payment options (I don't/won't use PayPal). $5 a month is peanuts. I spend more than that on far more frivilous things. But that $5 will go a long way towards keeping Rob employed. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to request that none of my subscription dollars go toward keeping Jon Katz around. In fact, I'd pay money for him to be FIRED. He's never once posted a single commentary or editorial that has actually made me think. He just states the obvious, exaggerates it, and makes it sound like it'll spell the end of the world. But I digress.
Presumably, most of you reading this have a job, or will have a job someday. This is Rob's job. We've seen that the "free content" model doesn't work (and a few of us even got burned pretty badly in the dot-bomb fallout on the stock market). This is evolution. This is reality. Suck it up, or take your ball and go home, continuing to live in your fantasy world that there are a wealth of people out there lining up to donate their time to entertain you for free.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
While the pay per view option is problably fairer it's not very fun, as you can tell not a lot of people here would want to have to feel like they're counting clicks (regardless of how much a single page costs). In addition even fewer people like the idea of paypal (not to mention the story a few day ago on paypal (once more I'm not the first one to have mentioned this and you also say you were aware of the problem but you still went ahead with it). People also just don't like to pay when they can view for free, the $5/1000 sounds like a nominal enough sum but people are unsure of how many clicks they actually do. I think it would be an idea to tell a person how many "pages" they've viewed somewhere in the preferences, not only do I think it would be something interesting to look at but if people realize how little they click they may figure that the payment is worth it.
By the way, anyone wanna bet the comments reach at least a thousand;)
I stole this Sig
Also, since the overall traffic is lower, the quality of postings/discussions is much higher than at /.
Logic fault....
if you tell people to ditch slashdot to go to kuro5hin...then you increase the overall traffic to kuro5hin...thus lowering the quality of postings on kuro5hin.
By telling us to check out kuro5hin you just peed in yer own pool.
You'd think you want to encourage people to stay on slashdot.....
-jef
I'd like to suggest that moderation and meta-moderation pages are free. If not, you immediately remove a significant reason for bothering to moderate or meta-moderation. I tend to spend a few minutes a day moderation each day - say 250 days a year. Use up 1/4 of my pages? I don't think so!
If you keep these two functions free, then we can maintain the value added by the community, and people will continue to contribute, because they fill feel that they are benefiting. We currently avoid the tragedy of the commons, because we can all contribute, and all benefit - let's not lose that.
If we want to be even more sophisticated, how about allowing people to trade in a certain amount of karma for a certain number of pages? Maybe 10 karma points = $5? That would encourage people to contribute more intelligently, and add more value.
ok:
Let's say you get past robot security.
Let's say slashdot leaves you alone.
Let's say freeslashdot.org is popular.
Well... freeslashdot is going to get SLAMMED by hits just like slashdot... and not long after freeslashdot is either going to be shut down for not paying their bandwidth fees, or it wont be free for much longer.
Besides, Slashdot has been good to us. The least you can do is look at some extra ad's to keep them in buisness. (or better yet you COULD subscribe)
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Does this sound familiar?
I love Slashdot, I really do, and I know this was inevitable. But it's sad, because it indicates that Slashdot has burned the last of the venture capital and has now slipped into the realms of desparate self delusion.
Please understand that this isn't a troll. I truly want Slashdot to survive, but I can't help but think that the people who will pay up tomorrow are the same people who are already clicking through today. There's no new revenue stream here, there's just a deparate gamble that the ads can get bigger faster than the readership goes elsewhere. There's no evidence to show that this happens. We're fickle bastards, us net users.
Before you mod me or retort, please understand one thing: I'm not talking about you. You are one of the good guys, as evidenced by your finger hovering over the "Moderate" or the "Submit" button. You care about Slashdot. You're one of the ones contributing, one of the ones who will stay after the ads (or the missing images from blocked hosts) take up half the screen. But you're not the problem. The problem are the quarter of a million casual viewers who turn up, get served a small banner or two, then wander off to Tom's Hardware or The Register. And I'm not saying bigger ads will drive them away overnight, just that the announcement of bigger ads mean that Slashdot needs to make more money... and they simply won't make it from the vast majority of casual users. They need to make it from a small hardcore minority, from the posters and the responders and the modders, from you and me.
And much as I love Slashdot, I don't want to end paying for (guesstimate) 0.02% of it. Do you? :(
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
How much do you think it costs to send say 100 gig of data down the pipe? Cmon "Mr.Bandwidth doesn't grow on trees". How much? I'll tell you how much. After the hardware is paid for (which it was in the 90's for the most part) It costs fucking pennies, if that.
I highly recommend you sign up for "Economics 101". If someone puts $1 billion of hardware out there, they expect a RETURN on that $1 billion worth of hardware (if you believe that is evil then please pony up that billion yourself) that at least equates what they could get if they invested it in the general markets (i.e. at least 6%), and that's ignoring that the internet today is VASTLY changed from the infrastructure put in place in "the 90's for the most part" : Want to back up that?). Don't like it? Build your own friggin' system.
I can't complain too much about the subscription, and will probably subscribe. I do have two requests before I do:
Anyway, best of luck with the subscription model. I hope you guys can provide enough value that people want to subscribe. Thanks for a great site!
.sig: file not found
You do realize, of course, that /. is willing to give you that same information for free too. So you have to download an ad with that info, big whoop.
-sk
Why not? Simply add up the cost to provide the whole metered service, divide by the number of people who will pay for the service, add in your 12% for a return on your assets/investment, and there you go.
And yes, that's simplifying it, but it's not fookin' rocket science.
While I haven't studied the dot-coms intensely, I suspect most of the "crash" is related to them having overvalued stocks and the fact that most of them generated little in the way of actual sales (advertising or otherwise) revenue. That and the fact that most dot-coms seemed to have little in the way of products, true value-adds in the service category, and no real effective way to place advertizing (to draw in ad revenues). I don't see selling a "metered service" as the hard part here.
I realize that this is most likely just going to get lost in the noise, but....
/. is going along with the ad companies and their new methods, but with the methods themselves. Is it just me or does "new advertising technology" seem synonymous with "more annoying to the consumer"?
/. Every once and a while there will be something that looks interesting, and it's targetted right at me. And I much prefer *effective* ads than the "lets make it more annoying and in their face to annoy them until the love us and buy shit" ads that are becoming more and more popular. I guess when you can get the 1% return via spam or banner or flash ads, you don't give a fuck right?
/., Rob, Jeff... please try to make sure that as you fill up your page(s) with more and more ads, that you are doing something good, not just bending over and spreading your cheeks for the brainless suits at the ad companies.
I don't have a problem with ads (much). They are a PITA, but a needed evil for the sites on the net to stay around until "free" bandwidth becomes a reality. My problem is not that
I'm not going to pay, just out of principle (yea, I'm a bastard), but I'm not going to block either... yet. When ads start becoming flash animations, or javascript images that float over top of the web page, well, that's the point where I'll either stop reading or start turning on junkbuster, turning off javascript, and disabling plugins. I'm not really going to loose a whole lot am I?
Why don't advertising companies realize that they are just annoying people more and more. I don't like ads and don't click on them simply out of principle, the exception being the thinkgeek ads that get served on
So in conclusion,
Let me first say that there's a lot of belly-aching that has always occured on /. That's a fact of any popular web site.
/. that the editors never bother to respond to. There's the whole moderation suppression conspiracy, questions about mysterious stability problems and other honest issues that people have questions on. However, when people raise them via the only method they can; in a story, they get modded off-topic (and, if you believe what quite a few folks have been saying, occasionally banned from being moderators)
/." post where folks can post questions/comments/concerns and editors will ACTIVELY participate. I know there's a /. topic for this already, but it's been so long since anyone has used it that I plum forgot what it's called.
/. survives or not. As several other folks have pointed out, they've ceased being unique and innovative -- I can get the same information from any number of other web sites who *do* actively interact with their user community.
However, there are also some very good issues and questions that get raised regarding
The only problem is there is no place to post these questions and comments and, even if there was, the editors have shown little to no interest in participating or interacting with the user community at all. Sure, Taco created some obscure discussion thread that few people know about, but I haven't seen any editors participating there.
So, what's our avenue for interactive discussion with the editors? Or are we not worthy of their attention? Sure, they're busy -- we're all busy. That's not an excuse. You could argue that most of the crap that gets posted is nothing more than FUD. OK, fine, but how about some editors telling us, at least once in a while, that it is, in fact, FUD. INTERACT with us, for christ sake. Isn't that what the web is all about?
So, you want me to pony up my $5 per month, start showing more of an interest in the user community. Start some sort of active, weekly "About
Otherwise, I really don't care whether
Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
I see the necessity for this, but at the same time, the most positive contributers will end up payong the most. This seems counter productive. Why not do something like reward positive moderation. So, for example, at the end of the month, add up all the moderation points on my comments. If I have a positive balance, credit me with banner-less page views. You'd have to figure out a good "pricing" system, but I think this would be beneficial in (at least) two ways:
1. Positive contributers get rewarded.
2. Everyday users may work towards more positive contribution for reward, resulting in even better content!
Seems like there is no reason not to try this!
"Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the most surely the one wasted." -Sebastian Roch Nicol
Real magazines pay their contributors -- but somehow, I don't expect to see a check from VA Systems if one of my comments is highly rated by the moderators. ;)
You might consider some sort of karma-based subscription service, where you lower prices for those who provide "good" content (as moderated). That way, people have an incentive to post quality material, and they don't feel cheated by paying Taco's web bills. ;) Everybody wins (except the trolls, of course).
I also expect professional journalistic standards from a site I'm paying for. If I'm giving away content, I'm not that concerned about spelling and punctuation -- but if I'm charging people to read what I write, I have editors and such who make sure the content is clean and readable. If Slashdot wants to move beyond amateur status, it needs to act professional.
I have no problem with Slashdot trying to recoup its costs -- but I (and lots of other people) expect value for thier money. Getting rid of ads isn't enough incentive to make me pay for Slashdot.
Good luck guys.
All about me
I'll pay for a comic I enjoy reading. I'll pay for access to IGN, maybe. But paying for a site that's effectively a news filter? Why? Slashdot produces Zero content I'm interested in. You can read book reviews elsewhere. Slashdot doesn't provide quality content. It provides tech-oriented filtration. That's a fine thing, but it doesn't warrant cash. I acknowledge that it needs it to survive, but the idea of paying for a service that's fairly mediocre, rankles. If you want Slashdot for the commenting, there are tons of fora out there. (Of course SA does charge now.) Sorry, no dice. Funny how I was just saying yesterday that I need to find another website to be my home page. Well, not like any of you guys care. Adios guys. It's been a nice lurker run (3 years).
All of the arguments that the announcers on PBS or public radio pound into your head during pledge week apply to Slashdot as well. It costs money to provide the service. They have some sponsors but that doesn't cover the entire cost of providing the service. You enjoy using the service. How much more do you spend on things that provide less value each month? Once you get past the idea that anything made of electrons should be free, which is pretty ridiculous if you think about it, twenty bucks a year is a laughably small amount for the service provided.
It adds value to your life, or else you'd go do something else, so why not kick in a little something?
Information wants to be $1.98/lb.
To post a message, it requires at least 3 page views. At the very least, they must view the story page, then the reply page, then submit it. If they're good little posters, they'll read the other comments (as I did, though the signal-to-noise ratio is rather low on this topic) which may require viewing multiple pages, and they'll preview their posting before actually submitting. It probably takes between 5-7 page views to post most comments. Many posters will then check back for replies, possibly replying again.
It again requires several page views to moderate. They must click on the story, then submit their moderations. If they're good moderators, they'll probably view more. Meta moderation also requires extra page views.
Since the above actions are all necessary to the vitality of slashdot, it would seem unfair to count them as page views. I'd rather see one of two alternatives:
The pages that contribute to the site(comment|moderate|story submit) don't count as page views for paying people, possibly still containing the small (unobtrusive) banner ad slashdot currently uses. Keeping this for all users, or just the paying users, or paying users getting no ad at all as a bonus for paying and contributing, would all make sense.
Or going to a flat monthly rate. I understand that you want to those that use slashdot more to pay more. But your frequent users are your frequent posters - those that make slashdot what it is.
Charles
Why not require a subscription for anonymous coward posts? Seems a good way to make sure the trolls are paying their fair share.
In the interest of not selling us a "pig in a poke," why not let users see their own usage statistics? Before they risk their money with PayPal? Even a simple "You view X pages a month/week/day" would be helpful for people to know how much they're going to have to dish out.
-----
Klactovedestene!
In the article you say
"As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3% (that will have to pay more than $5 a month)"
Lets look at what this means...
The people that produce comments worth reading ARE your content... So, you will be charging those people that PRODUCE for you... This seems backwards to me, and if the people that normally comment are turned off, the quality of slashdot will suffer.
I fear that you will just become "another example of how websites can't make money". Noone will ever anlize the fact that you turned away the people that actually made your website worth reading... I certainly am not going to PAY you for the privledge of posting to your website so you can make money off of it.
Turn the concept around the way it SHOULD be. Do something like, "the top 20% highest moderated posters get free access" or something like this. This will, in effect, almost become like a payment to your authors.
But it is probably too late for anyone to read this... There are hundreds of posts already by upset people, and this will just get lost in the noise.
-db
Excellent point. You're killing what gets you legitimate advertisers, leaving you the spam equivalent as your advertising base. People new to /. will see a rag top-heavy with invasive advertizing for crap. Less people will join. Even fewer of worth.
Guys.. I understand the rock you're on but you're starting down a path that guarantees you will lose.
This stick method just isn't going to work. ['Pay us and we we'll stop hitting you.']
You're also going to lose submissions. Better at least think of a karma whoring system where your trap line gets a free ride.
I support a subscription-based site if only to achieve a better concentration of quality posts and fewer trolls.
I await the abuse from the trolling community.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
This is typical of having a large site, offering it for free, yada, yada, yada. Always happens and we've been seeing it happen for a few months now. Seeing it happen on Slashdot is just something that was going to happen as it will everywhere.
However there are two problems to the subscription gig. First there's a huge issue with page views vs page count vs whatever. I can configure my threshold and viewing preferences so that any story I want to read, and complete comments, shows in one pass saving me a page hit but we all know that by the time you get to the bottom of the page and reload it, they'll be 10-100 new comments added and this can go on for several hours (depending on how popular the subject is). Also pages like this one where I'm entering my comment and will preview it and then it gets added, do all those count? I think you guys clearly need to define what is and what isn't counted.
However I don't believe that charging by the page is reasonable for a site like this. You get 300,000+ users so asking for even 10% of them to pay means a return of about $600,000 a year. You've been spinning along for quite some time now without having anyone foot the bill so why is now any different? The gravy train has run out. OSDN execs are saying "We want to make some ROI on this Slashdot thing". And 600K a year can't pay for the hardware? I'm no expert and I don't have the numbers for this site, but I seriously doubt 600K a year wouldn't cover the hardware, bandwidth and staff costs.
liB
It is not limited in theory maybe, but in practice Slashdot traffic is going to be fairly predictable (except on days like 2001-09-11). Everyday Slashdot gets x number of page views. Because the traffic levels and overall growth/decline patterns are likely to be stable, forecasting future page view levels should not be overly difficult.
That is, until you throw monkey-wrenches into the pattern that fook it all up, like suddenly charging for a previously free service. That's where some market research would be handy. In this case: Slashdot asks 1000 random users to fill out a survey and among the questions are some related to subscriptions and pricing. Then based on those users' habits (obtained from the logs) and their answers, assumptions can be drawn about the level of subscription that would be obtained at various price points. Presumably the price points which allow for the greatest maximization of profit would be chosen for the first roll-out.
And in a way, rolling out pricing the way they are achieves some of this. They will quickly get data on how much people are willing to pay and in what amounts.
Do you mean the stupid advertisers didn't realize that ad size is not the problem?
:-)
Case in point: right now most news sites have them, but none is making more money because of them. And I visit some of them less and less because those flashy ads give me headaches.
I'm waiting for the first seizure victim lawsuit related to a blinking ad on a web page. Which, ironically, will be a news piece on web sites with other blinking ads in them. The first self-replicating lawsuit!
About the subscription model, I'd like to say I'm all for it. However, I don't know what 1000 pages would mean. Before you implement subscriptions, please put a cookie and a note on the page showing me some sort of page meter so I can have an idea of how many pages I see per day.
So another high-profile "community-based" site implements a subscription system. The Motley Fool also moved to a subscription model recently. There's is an interesting twist: the editorial content continues to be free, but if you want access to the boards, you have to pay the money.
I didn't pay the money, even though I frequented the Motley Fool for almost three years, (and speculated endlessly about who the brilliant and mysterious HowardRoark might be on the AMZN board.)
The problem I have with the Fool's approach, and Slashdot's apparent decision is that it violates an implied ethic between the business and the community. TMF touted its "free" boards for years. Slashdot reminds you that all comments belong the the poster. Both sites encouraged people to give freely of their time and mental energy, and both appear ready to hold access to "the community" hostage in exchange for money.
It's only a matter of time until Slashdot blocks all access to non-subscribers. Is the issue really "survival", in the sense of paying for bandwidth and salaries? If that were the case, Slashdot could put up an itemized target number, and the community could match it. But that isn't the case. The "survival" argument is a facade. Slashdot is a business, Andover/VA is a business, and all of these entities seek to monetize the community.
You can take as many newspapers as you like?
The "flat rate" refers to the concept of paying a certain amount for something that you can take without limits. Note: Phone companies would looooove to switch away from flat rate. They started making noise about this when people got modems and started using their resources for much, much longer than they used to...
"Metered" means something that has a fixed per-unit cost. Cable tv doesn't count because they aren't giving away things that have a certain cost, they are giving away access to content whose cost has is (relatively speaking) limited. Look at it this way. The cable company doesn't care if you watch TV 24 hours a day, because it doesn't cost them more if you do. They are selling something that doesn't cost them more if you use more. So it's not metered. If you ride in a taxi, it costs them more (gas, etc) to go further, so there's a meter in the cab. Your ride is metered.
sysadmin skill
server power
storage space
code upkeep cost
bandwidth cost
I remember back when
Amazing magic tricks
Well, we all know the answer to that one now, don't we? It seems everyone seems to be forgetting that Slashdot has ads right now. They're just going to get a little bigger, but content and the free nature of Slashdot isn't changing. However, if you REALLY hate ads, you can pay $5 and get rid of 1,000 of them. Everyone that keeps suggesting $5 for a year seems to forget that they would probably be losing money on that (I'm guessing $5 is the going rate for 1,000 ads on Slashdot, so you guys break even on the deal), which doesn't help anyone out.
I'm not going to pay the money for removing the ads, since after growing up reading newspapers, magazines, watching TV, and seeing billboards everywhere, I'm used to them, and don't pay attention to them anymore. If they start to run popup or pop-under ads, however, then I stop visiting. Don't complain about them giving you the option (not forcing it like Salon) to pay to get rid of ads, though, it's a nice option to have.
Can someone answer me a simple question, though: If ads are blackholed thru my OpenBSD NAT, do those still count as hits for Slashdot? I'm pretty sure they do, but I've never gotten a real answer from someone.
To maximize benefit for the advertisers, this is what I would suggest.
1) Ask users to supply basic demographic information, like age, sex, and general job description. Users could lie, of course, but, it would help establish an overall profile.
2) Require that users log in to view the site (like the NY times site does). This would chop bandwidth by a fair margin, get rid of annoying Anonymous comments, and allow better statistics to be gathered so that advertisers know who their target market is.
3) Precede the current front page (which is the list of articles) with a big ad page which must be clicked through before the list of articles is reached.
4) Reward good content providers (posters and submitters) somehow. They are your "authors" after all. Enter them into drawings for swag, or give them ad-free page views, or something.
In the end, its all about survival. Slashdot must change or die. There is no use whining about why it can't stay the same. If it is to survive, it must be beholden to its advertisers by providing them a good platform to sell their products.
Till I see how annoying these new ads are. As it is, I'll probably fork over the cash, but if I don't notice the change...
:)
Ok, I'll STILL fork over the cash. When I get paid in two weeks.
Triv
I'm not sure about this -- not that I refuse to pay, since I understand the web won't survive on a free-for-all basis forever. What I don't like is the fact that you pay for a number of pageviews, not for a period of time or some other flat rate.
Flat rate pricing has two advantages: simplicity, and comfort. It's simple to say 'Okay, no ads for a year for $x.' No need to count the pages you visit, or wonder if reloads count, or if changing the threshold settings to go from 500 posts to 15 is going to count as an add-free counter item.
Comfort, because I hate nervously watching a meter deplete and trying to optimize my web viewing habits in order to make sure I don't run out. When you say 82% of folks are covered... don't forget that this site caters to the hardcore sorts that participate the most and are likely to fall into the 18% that have to worry. I've never counted my page views, so I can't even tell if I fit that 18%.
And all things considered, I'd rather browse with javascript off and image loading off than worry about depleting my ad-free views. It's less hassle. Which means less profit for you, but that's free market in action... maybe when you add those value-added feature you're thinking about we'll be getting somewhere.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Well folks, it's only a few bucks. In the end, I'll probably just leave things as they are, and if the big ads drive me nuts I'll make a decision then whether to cough up, or make another site my homepage. That's life in the big city.
:)
However, what about Google? Assuming I'll always be online, they're something I cannot live without, yet the ads are absurdly small and never interfere with it's usage. It's free. Is it because so many more people use Google than Slashdot that the advertisers don't give them as much flack? Perhaps the answer is to broaden the demographic - perhaps Brittany vs Linus online voting?
DT
Access to the rejected submissions bin? Yes, please -- with the opportunity to moderate or rank them, so the most interesting rejected submissions float to the top. If a story gets a very positive ranking, maybe the editorial staff can give it a second thought. And if it goes the way of the troll, nobody is the worse for it
Let's flip this on its head...paying customers should have no karma cap.
You've just equalled "Those who profess to hate us the most" with "those who provide us with free content". Pause a moment, and wonder if those 3% are "those who actually care". Then, wonder if maybe their ranting against you would, in a kinder environment, have taken the form of suggestions for improvement. You can only suggest something so many times and be ignored / discarded before you start getting all jiggy with it.
You're running a site where 3% of your users provide content to the other 97%. You've just said that you doubt the 3% will ever pay. Do you think they're going to not pay, and continue to provide you with free content? Particularly taking into account the "venom posted in this discussion"?
Taco, you're running a magazine of sorts. 75% of your writers and researchers are screaming their heads off at you, and your response is that you doubt they'll pay you at all. You should probably be wondering who, exactly, is going to pay you at all if those 3% leave.
It's strange that of the 3% who make this site worth visitng, probably 20% of them are no longer allowed to moderate, and 75% of them are yelling at you right now, and you're so blase about the entire affair. Aren't you just a little bit worried? Particularly if your ads are large enough to screw page formatting and make everything ugly when filtered by proxomitron or junkbuster, those 3% might not be around for much longer.
I respect what you've done with this place (aside from $rtbl'ing me and a couple thousand others), and I know this decision is driven by your advertisers, and your corporate parent, but I can't believe that what I'm saying here passed under your radar. I assume these concerns were raised, addressed, and resolved -- so tell me, what was the resolution?
I'm worried Slashdot is going to die. Assure me that this is not the case, that these new measures are not going to cause all of your unpaid content providers to scatter on the wind.
-l
You fire my friend cxreg then you start charging for the site. Did you guys hold a "How can we suck total shit" meeting this week? Fuck yeh.
I've never understood why ad-supported content providers (particularly radio stations, and now, perhaps, Slashdot) always follow this model:
1) Start out providing good content and very few ads thus becoming popular.
2) Once popular, start playing - or inserting - many more ads, to the point of extreme annoyance.
3) Drive listeners - or readers - away and fade into oblivion.
Why can't these guys just charge MORE for the small number of ads? Why not auction them off to the highest bidder?
-- The reader anything less than completely failing to not misunderstand this sig is cursed.
Except, Slashdot is not becoming a pay site. You're just paying to have ads removed. Only if your comments ended up in a 'subscriber-only' section would your statement be true. Also, by merely posting on Slashdot, you have granted them a limited-use license to store and display your comments as they see fit. (They had a story about it awhile back, when they were wanting to use comments in a book that I don't think every actually came out.)
Just like usenet. If you ever post on a newsgroup, guess what, someone's making money off your post. There are companies that charge for usenet access, so you'd have to send a letter to each and every one of them, as well.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Yes, it's funny how the TANSTAAFL crowd ignores advertising costs. Advertising is the hemoragging wound of capitalism: the only way to compete with advertising is to advertise in response. The net result is higher prices without value, a completely useless sector of the economy, and a lot of cultural pollution.
No, the 'people' who run this are corporate drones of VA. Just because Larry and Rob at one time pretended to support open source, Open Source, free and Free software, doesn't mean that they aren't greedy, evil, and stupid. (Of course, accepting ads doesn't mean they ARE greedy, evil, and stupid).
/. what it is have been ignored and sidelined, yet again. Those people are the readers. Even if JK, CT, michael, and everyone else posted and wrote each and every single front page article, that in no way compares to the number of comments written by people like you and I. WE are the content providers on /., and we get nothing for that. I'm not asking for money. Or ad-free viewings. I'm not even asking for myself.
/. what it is today. Without it, we'd be no better than any of the portal sites."
/. what it is.
My biggest problem with this is that everyone sucks Rob's dick about what he has done and how much he has given. First, Rob already got paid for the work he did when he sold out. Second, he does not seem to have done as much since then. Certainly his editing skills have not improved. And there are more duplicate stories lately than I ever remember.
But most important is that the people who *truly* make
I'm asking for Rob and the gang to once, just once, say "you readers are a great bunch of people. You've made
But we won't get it. Because they still think and act as if they are the ones who made
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
If half of that 1.5% who will have to pay over $60 a year to access
Sorry but I just don't see how charging people who are content producers as well as the heavy content consumers is going to help the site? Perhaps people should now be paid for each submission posted to the site, after all a good story will increase the views, and thus the revenues incoming to
This is really ironic timing considering the journal I wrote yesterday called Roll your own ad remover. Everyone take a look. I don't agree with ANY subscription based site, simply because I can't afford to pay for all the sites I frequent. I already pay $45/month for high speed internet access. That really is all I can afford to spend on something that is as much entertainment as tool. I don't blame them for doing it, and I'm glad these guys can make a living doing what they enjoy, but it seems to me that /. is doing well. This is (and I'm just speculating) corporate greed, brought about by VA Whatever's desire to increase the bottom line. I doubt Taco had much of a choice. He probably had to fight to get the subscription set up in this way. I know how corporations work, and I've been the brunt of these type desicions before. I just hope /. doesn't suffer because of a management dscision. Then again, I could be wrong, it has happened on occasion. ;-)
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Bandwidth is actually more expensive than you think. A full t1 loop can cost up to 900 dollars. With the bandwidth that slashdot pulls, I would expect that you would realize that they probably have a ds3 or the like. Those are not cheap. So hence, your bandwidth=pennies theory is disproven, and my karma will go down most likely, just because I wanted to point out the obvious.
:)
For many years we have surfed the internet with ads. The fact that the obviously annoying one at the top is there proves that it can be eventually annoyed. Another website, www.opendiary.com went to a paid format such as slashdot is proposing, and it turned out that they had 16000 people subscribe the first week. Of course, the people who subscribed recieved no ads. It is everyones own opinion, but I would rather be bombarded with advertisements the size of Cowboy Neals resume than have to pay for something that was free at one point. Others do not, and are annoyed constantly by them. So this allows for another solution for those people. So why would anyone have a complaint after this is all resolved, except for cheapskates like myself who will not be paying, but get these larger banners.. (maybe the ones that move, I love em
How much do Taco, Katz, Hemos, et. al. make per year? How much is their stock worth?
And what, pray tell, do they actually do to deserve this money?
The content on this site is provided by the READERS and the editors don't know an adverb from a participle. Any news story on this site can be had for FREE elsewhere, EARLIER! The software is open source, undoubtedly most of the people who wrote it never got payed for their efforts.
I like the comments. Many are informative. If there were some way to pay the people who actually provide me with information, I would.
If I were actually buying into a cooperative community, where I had a vote on things, could elect a board of directors, editors, etc. then I would not hesitate. Why should I pay some nerd to do a job they aren't even doing well.
Let me reiterate, it is the community here at slashdot that I appreciate. The editors have been getting more and more on my nerves for years.
I know that it takes money to provide bandwidth. If I had a say in things here, I would pay to be part of this community. But for the same amount of money, I can get a subscription to a print magazine with articles actually written by staff writers as well as pretty pictures and diagrams. Part of slashdot's appeal has always been it's amatuerishness. I think certain geeks heads have gotten too swelled to realize that this isn't a professional operation, it's not a real magazine, it's not even a real web-magazine. It's a discussion forum with links to other news sources. As such, it's not worth paying money for.
If this money went to paying for a professional editor, if some of it went to pay the people who submit stories and comments, if some of it went to pay back people who donated hardware in slashdot's infancy, then I might reconsider. Until then, this is my last post. I won't moderate, I won't metamoderate. I will read slashdot with graphics turned off (not like I'd miss an actual picture or diagram, anyway.) Goodbye, chumps. Sad to be leaving, it's been fun.
But not $5 a month worth.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
/. without ads doesn't help me.
/. for it's own content. i visit it because it's a convenient dumping ground for links to many things i find interesting.
/. is a collection of links to stories on -other- websites who -will- have ads.
i don't read
the forums? hah! those are mind-numbing.
if the ads were intrusive (the page-top banner is thoroughly tuned out on just about every site) then i'd just stop visiting.
try a different model.
subscription didn't work for PCXL and it -had- redeeming self-generated content.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Other people have faced this problem
Before the advent of the World Wide Web, everybody who was anybody in the computer world was on CompuServe. And each CompuServe forum competed for members (and the connection time revenue that the member paid) based on the help, support, community, files, or messaging that it provided. It was--explicitly--pay-for-content. It was precisely the business model that you guys want to adopt.
Savvy forum operators knew the statistics: only 5% of forum members ever posted a comment. And roughly 1% of forum members posted 90% of the comments. The more commments (particularly the more substantive comments), the more forum members there were--95% of whom were "read-only" lurkers. Thus, it paid to encourage people to post comments.
This policy discourages people from posting comments
Think of what you have to do to post a comment:
Are you done? Nope. You'd better hope your comment doesn't get mod'd up--because you'll get "messages" telling you that. Link to that page? (1 hit). You'd better hope you haven't contributed something provocative that produces replies--because you'll have to read each reply (1 hit apiece), and possibly post a response (3 hits per response, see above).
In short, contributing to SlashDot, writing interesting comments, getting mod'd up, and responding to replies now will cost you money. That is, all the things that you (SlashDot) want people to do (desperately need people to do) you are going to charge money for. You're creating disincentives to provide you with content--and that content is what you're trying to sell to subscribers.
What smart forum operators did was to issue "free flags". Each forum contractor got a certain amount of free forum time to award to forum users who helped out in one way or another. There were sysop accounts for people who did administrative things--but there were a lot more free flags for regular forum members who just participated in a lot of conversations. It would make a *lot* of sense for you to do the same thing.
In the ultimate geek world you'd be able to automate a process to identify people making significant contributions. That's what moderation is, after all. But automated processes can be manipulated (i.e. karma whoring)--this probably requires some individual discretion. Identify significant contributors (you can start with high-karma users, but I'm sure you can identify other factors to consider) and grant them free access. You want them posting comments all the time--those are the people whose peers have voted to indicate that their voices should be heard. The very last thing you want to do is get those people contributing less, because each contribution now costs them at least 3 page hits.
Oh, yeah--Paypal?
Be serious. If OSDN and VA Software is on such shaky ground that you can't get a merchant account through CyberCash or someone else, you have serious problems.
> (As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than
> half of all comment posters fall into this 3%)
Stop and think about that, fellow posters. That means comment posters comprise *less than 6%* of slashdot viewers [according to some means of measurement].
What are those other 19 outta 20 people doing? Just reading the articles and surfing to the links? Are they bothering with comments? If so, why are they so interested in reading things but not saying anything?
Seems like you could charge the silent majority, if they're truly surfing the site for content and not merely curious homepage clickers that don't care enough to pay, and still make plenty without bothering to levvy a fee on the people who make the content come proverbially alive.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
This is evidence to me that the following is possible:
Imagine a BOD meeting (21st century style with bottled water, not in a smoke filled room). In this BOD meeting sit those who own, and those in control of slashdot.
"Rob, you've got to change the script to remove any anti-microsoft content as it as posting. And the goat.cx stuff has got to go too"
"Uh, yeah. Well, um.....but slashdot is about freedom of speech, power to the people, communication of the masses"
"Sorry Rob, I know how you feel. But Microsoft is buying a lot of advertising with us lately and, quite frankly, they spend enough here to have earned our respect"
"But what about our subscriber base?"
"Look at the numbers guys. Subscriber revenue is one millionth of what advertiser revenue is. And Microsoft is now paying eighty percent of that advertiser revenue. And all that revenue is what's keeping your new bride living in luxury"
"It doesn't make it RIGHT"
"But it's what they want. And if they don't get what they want then they are pulling their account with us. We'll all be looking for jobs and the dot com thing is over. Your next job will consist of asking the customer if they want fries with their lunch"
"Oh. Well, um......will this afternoon be soon enough for those script changes then?"
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
I remember when PC Magazine first came out (in the 80's), it was mostly advertising and that was its primary value. Everyone wanted to know all about the latest hardware and software that you could add on to your PC, and the respective vendors were best qualified to talk about them.
I think the main reason most people despise today's web advertising is that it sucks. It's all about making an impression, and contains little interesting content. These "in your face" ads are also created with the assumption that you really don't want to see them, so they have to force you to look.
This, and Slashdot's new approach, are all horribly misguided. What /. needs to do is play a major role in the production, appearance and categorization of the ads. Make them a resource, not a nuisance. Make them informative, browseable and searchable. Reject products with no real value.
Slashdot should raise the bar for web advertising, not wallow in the mud of its current state.
I suspect if you did the same study today you'd find that advertising actually does more to bring up prices. Companies realized that competing on price was detrimental to them, so they switched to branding as the primary form of advertising.
To see this in it's most obvious form, look at Nike. Their ads don't even mention their shoes. Heck, they don't mention the name. It's just a sort of video art piece with a nike swoosh and maybe "just do it" at the end.
The thing is, people buy Nike, not because the quality is better but because of branding. Thus prices can be raised because people will pay more for what may in fact be an inferior product. That's on top of the fact that price is raised anyhow because they need to spend so much on building their brand through various advertising channels.
When was the last time you saw an ad banner adverising a product being cheaper than the competition? It's rather infrequent, non?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
This will probably get lost in the noise, but something I've been thinking about is a "distributed /." Think of it as /. over Freenet. Hell, even use Freenet as a way to distribute bandwidth costs across an entire spectrum of users. This would help the Freenet folks, as well as keep /. alive.
/.
Of course, this would have to be an independent movement, because I'm sure VA Linux (or whatever the hell they're named now) wouldn't want to lose out on a cash cow like
Something that you two have been overlooking for this thread is the nested option. I personally hate clicking for comments, so I put it on nested and just read down, scrolling past the threads im not interested in. Im sure it saves on alot of page views.
I also barely notice the slashdot ads. As long as they aren't pop-ups, they're not a big deal. The way its set up, I barely look at the sidebar and area that has all the story categories on the top. Those make a good enough buffer that even the most annoying ads (like the open projects one thats changing colors) are mentally filterable.
As soon as I get a paycheck im sure ill be putting down some money. I like slashdot. Im willing to pay $5 for it. Hell whats the difference? next week ill buy a couple of cases of presidents choice cola instead of coke and break even.
To live till you die is to live long enough. -Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Seriously though, what is the big deal? All I hear is people bitching about how awful this is and how slashdot isn't good enough to pay for. If you don't like the ads, then pay to get rid of them. If you don't want to pay, then quit complaining and live with it. It's not like a couple ads is really going to kill you. Personally, I think ads are annoying, and I also love reading slashdot (even with the supposed grammatical errors and lack of original stories which some people seem think is some huge deal), but I also do not have the money/want to spend my money on getting rid of the ads...so instead I'll just live with it. It's not that big of a fucking deal. Quit complaining and get over it, slashdot needs to generate some profit and this is one way to achieve it. Can you blame them?!?
Two wrongs don't make a right, three lefts do!
I will pay $20/year for this site to remain like it is. The economics breaks down for me very simple.I get to read about a wide variety of subjects in a timely and presorted wheat from chaff manner.I get the unbiased opinion of a large variety of generally intelligent and hip geeks. I get to read uncensored information unlike any other filtered media outlet. I get a true sense of what freedom really is (in the first admendment sense). I get real timely and sometimes well thought out criticism if my posts are stupid. I can actually learn about what my peers are thinking without getting shot at. In short I can get to the heart of understanding human nature. Naww... I still want a free subscription cause I named my s*&t a$$ cat Slashdot. Flame me or blame me, but I'm too big fer ya to tame me.
"It just dosen't matter."Bill Murray from The Razors Edge
There was a day slashdot was about open source, free (as in speach and in beer) and getting to know the way around the web... stuff that matters.
Today, they (there's a lot of them) announced the end of all this. Today it got announced that I have to pay to see slashdot the way I want to. Today I got told that filtering advertisement is bad. The next thing will be, they tell me not to skip the commercials on my taped tv programs.
I sit in my little web enabled corner and cry.
It is not that I am not willing to pay for good services. It is not that I am not able to pay about $30 a year. It's about my loss of faith. It's about an announcement that almost makes me not to believe in free (as in freedom 'cause I don't care about the beer).
It's about a mentality getting lost
It's about using old-fashioned management tactics in new uncontrolled environments.
It's about the loss of what we believe in.
I know there is a need for money, bandwidth and costs. But from a recent mail about some marriage I read there is also a 250.000 readers on slashdot. Multiply that with $20 and I think you can buy all the bandwidth you need + get yourself a nice honeymoon (which I wish Rob will have).
If this is going to be the goal slashdot wants to reach, I would like to cancel my subscribtion now.
Trip
The site where: "I'm right, as long as you ignore the things that prove me wrong", became a valid method of debate.
That makes no sense.
:) ... and it feels really good.
If you pay per page view, then it is impossible to pay for more views than you use, unless you stop reading Slashdot and don't use up some of the views you paid for. But the same thing would happen if you stopped reading Slashdot before your yearly subscription were up.
It's simplest to think about this with some concrete examples:
Let's imagine that Slashdot charged $20/year instead of $5 per 1000 views.
For any individual user who pays the $20 yearly subscription, one of three things could happen:
1) You view the site less than 4000 times, say 200 times. In this case, you would have only paid $10 under the pay-per-view scheme. You are cheated.
2) You view the site exactly 4000 times. You paid for exactly what you viewed. Congratulations!
3) You view the site more than 4000 times, say 8000 times. In this case, you would have paid $40 under the pay-per-view scheme. You paid less than Slashdot thought that the views were worth. Slashdot was cheated.
So in the pay-per-time-period scheme, except in the highly unlikely second case, someone ends up cheated, either you, or Slashdot.
Wouldn't you rather just pay for exactly what you use, and feel confident that you are not being cheated and that Slashdot isn't being cheated either?
BTW, you don't have to think about how many times you have viewed Slashdot in the current payment scheme. You pay once, then forget about it. If you don't like to keep track of such things, then don't - some day, ads will start reappearing and you will realize that you need to pay some more. The exact same thing happens if you ignore your time-period-based subscription - eventually it runs out and you have to pay again.
You don't have to pay per view of Slashdot, anyway - if you have some kind of cache, then you can just view the already-downloaded Slashdot story from the cache should you want to look at it again. You end up only paying Slashdot for the views that you made which required their servers to service your request. So in the end, you only pay Slashdot when they're actually working, anyway.
So aside from being uncomfortable with having to embrace a new payment paradigm, I simply cannot see what you base your complaints on.
As an aside, I bought 10000 views today, and I'm happy as could be. I've been enjoying Slashdot for years now (check out my UID, which would be lower had I bothered to sign up for one when I first saw that accounts were available), and this is the first time I've given something back (not sure my previous comments count
Okay, first of all, let me just say that I've been reading /. since 1997. The value of /. to me can be seen in the fact that I'm still AC'ing my posts, even though I've got a user ... somewhere ... with an ID ~1000. (When I set up that user, we didn't care so much about what number we got ;-) ).
There are a great many sites out there that I would be willing to give donations to. (This begs the question as to why more sites aren't set up as nonprofits.) Currently, Slashdot is not one of those, because what it provides -- a sometimes valuable filter; lots of discussion, most of which is unreadable; Jon Katz and his weird my-so-called-life angst -- has very little cash value to me.
What will I pay for? Reporting. Editing. Proofreading, for God's sake. I give money to my NPR affiliate because I find Diane Rehm to be thought-provoking, "All Things Considered" to be trustworthy, and "Marketplace" to be infomative. Slashdot, which has become infamous for posting articles without doing any sort of backgrounding on them ("Hell, we'll just print a retraction in the next Slashback") doesn't offer me any of those things.
Slashdot has a large, loyal readership, and the potential to become a respectable news source, not just a content filter. If it starts looking at article submissions as jumping-off points for research, interviews, and reporting, then I'll gladly pay for the service, on a click or flat basis. But until then, don't expect my check to be in the mail. I'll just be waiting for my "Fresh Air" coffee mug.
-Baka!
Use lynx.
Let me get this straight. You want me to pay for the priveledge of not having advertisements being crammed down my throat in an obtrusive way?
What happens when subscriptions don't make enough money? Will you then have "premium" subscriptions? Normal subscriptions will now bypass all but the smaller ads, and premium bypasses them all. But wait, eventually that won't work either. You'll have to have "Gold" subscriptions. *sigh*
The internet is a means to an end, not the end itself. There's a reason the dot-com economy went bust. This plan reflects a lack of imagination, and a basic misunderstanding of the *new* new economy.
Okay, that was more than two words. If you want the two-word version, you'll need to subscribe to my new "Rant subscription service." Currently we accept cash.
Here's why:
Our posts!
We, the readers, are what has made /. into what it is.
We should be charging *them* for our contributions.
Without us, the readers, /. is nothing.
Got it, guys?
Nothing.
Zero, zip, nada, zilch...
Without us, there is no /.
Pay for a subscription to what *we* are creating?
Hell no!
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
We the readers/posters are what has created /. -- not Taco and Hemos and the rest.
99.99% of the content of /. is what's posted by the readers.
The little that Taco and Hemos do is to write poorly-formed snippets that headline each article.
The entire substance of /. is written entirely by us, its readers.
And now we get to pay for the privilege of continuing to provide /. with its lifeblood?
I think not.
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I just don't see myself paying /. to put up content I create. There are many publishers out there that will happily take your money to finance their publishing your book -- it's called self-publishing and as any author will tell you, a self-published book is rarely anything more than an ego stroke for a wealthy writer wanna-be. Now the idea sending someone my words, who aggregates them with a bunch of words written by other people who have paid or not, and then paying them to see what I wrote sounds ludicrous. There just isn't enough value added by the intermediate party (slashdot) to justify my dime. If, on the other hand, contributors get paid, like magazine writers, out of the revenues generated in part by their contributions, that's another story.
Why are you willing to *pay* to produce a product that *others* are selling to the advertisers?
Taco and Hemos don't *make* this place happen, you do, as do all posters.
Without us, they're nothing.
Other sites create their content; here, the content is created by the very people who are now going to be charged for the privilege of doing so..
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
You are wrong.
I control the copyright to this comment, as Slashdot happily acknowledges in order to protect themselves from liability. "Comments are owned by the Poster."
If I request it, Slashdot must remove every last comment I've made on this website, including those made as an AC (for which I would specifically have to reference and prove ownership, perhaps a difficult task depending on how extensive their and/or my ISPs' logs are). I am not certain that Slashdot would be quick to oblige, but if necessary, I could have a lawyer pursue it, and as with the Church of Scientology, Slashdot would be forced to relent.
Those of us with a clue said the exact same thing back when the silly Katz book was revealed, and I'm quite certain that we are the reason it was never published. Hell, I'm the individual mentioned in the 'we're putting it on hold' story who mailed them specifically saying that I did not and would not explicitly or implicitly give my permission for any of my contents to be reproduced in any form but the one you're reading them in, though in that one case I hadn't made any comments on the Hellmouth stories.
I seem to recall that they made the text available online, anyway. If anything of mine had been in it, I *would* have taken action. As to assumed hypocrisy, I don't break copyright law when I download music, either (thanks to a convenient loophole in my country's copyright laws).
Posted anonymously because every time I make one of these comments on any forum, there's always some kook who goes back and archives anything I even hint that I might remove. Everything2 is terrible for that. I saw it happen to a dozen people if not more.
I'm all for paying to have a slashdot free of obese ads. I'll probably pay more than average because I do read quite a lot regularly. I think I can live with that. Of course this will only happen once there's a way for me to pay giving my CC number or sending my check to someone I trust (see my sig if you want to know what I mean).
Anyway, I'm a bit concerned about the moderation process. Periodically I do get some moderation points. Sometimes I don't have the time to do anything with them (fortunately they last a few days, so usually I eventually do). But when I do, I pick some current topic I don't really have any need to post on, and start reading to see who's on topic with real contributions. By picking a topic of less interest to me, I think I can be less biased than I would be for some other topic that interests me greatly. But by so doing, I'm reading a lot of comments that I otherwise would never have seen ... page views I otherwise would never have made.
CmdrTaco ... I recommend that moderation be changed slightly as follows. When a user is logged in and has moderation points, it gives them the option to make an election to moderate whatever thread they want to, much like it does now, but via a separate link. Confirm they really want to, and really understand they won't be able to post there. Then that thread can be viewed without ads, without cost, for the first 100 pages viewed. When a moderation point is used, add 100 again to the number that can be viewed on that thread. When all moderation points are used up, let the moderator keep their free ad-free views for that thread so as not to discourage delaying moderation (the moderating should be done because a comment is worthy, not avoided because it might mean the ads come back or the pages have to be paid for again). In other words, up to 500 free views on threads elected for moderating.
While I would pay to access /. ad-free, I would end up not doing any moderating any more if I had to also pay for the moderated pages. I'm not interested in paying to moderate just like I'm not interested in paying to vote for politicians.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
All the sites are adding to add the larger ads that advertisers demand, but clickthrough rates keep falling. In the meantime, Google has small, text-only ads, and they get way better clickthrough rates than anyone - because the ads aren't obnoxious, and are well targeted. How about trying text ads on slashdot instead?
a) First of all, you're paying for ad-free page views. If you can't load a page, seems to me that...surprise!...you wouldn't be charged for one of your ad-free page views.
b) Grow the fuck up. Do you think bandwidth is free? Do you think those really hibby rack-mount servers are free? Do you think that when one of those two fail, CmdrTaco is just gonna sit around, thumb up his ass, waiting for someone else to fix it?
Read CT's above comments: this is like a pledge drive for PBS. Instead of a tote-bag, you get ad-free pages. And remember: if you don't like it -- or Slashdot -- you're always free to fuck the fuck off.
Goddamn, but your comment has made me angry. I'll get modded down for sure, if anyone sees this in this field of 2000+ comments, but I don't care. I'm signing up because I like this goddamned site and I want to know it's going to stay around. I want to know that /. isn't going to sink beneath the waves because of apathy and "Where's my five-nines uptime guarantee?" clueless whining from idiots like yourself. I am honestly quite unable to understand what the fuck why your idiotic demands should seem important to you.
(I'll probably wake up tomorrow and regret how angrily I replied. But I won't regret that $20.
Carousel is a lie!
HE IS A VILE SHELL OF A MAN TWISTED BY GREED SO MUCH SO THAT HE WILL PILLAGE HIS OWN COMMUNITY FOR A FEW DOLLARS.
WHAT A SWINE.
TUNA TACO IS A SICKENING EXCUSE FOR A MAN.
topic.
* Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
* Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
* Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
* Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.
If you only have 1000 page views per $5 are you going to use a view format that forces you to click on links to see nested or long comments or are you just going to setup the comments to display in one huge page? Are you going to have a brief front page with just the stuff that interests you or are you going to double the number of stories and uncheck all of your excluded topics, just so you don't have to click on "older stuff" to see all the stories?
Slashdot has to charge based on how much traffic you cause and it needs to have a nice way of helping you optimise your viewing.
1 simple reading: scan the frontpage for articles of interest and click on those of interest
2 thorough metamoderating: sometimes scan context in metamoderation if the comment can not be evaluated on itself
3 thorough moderating: switch to flat/newest first/threshold 0 to give new comments a chance, reload page (automatically) when moderating
4 writing comments: prewiew your comment at least once, maybe reference older slashdot articles or context of the current article, maybe also write multiple comments per article, especially when discussing.
5 submitting articles: although you only need one or two pages to submit, you will probably be very interested in the subject and comment a lot.
The order is not choosen arbitraryly by me. It is (at least i believe so) ordered according to the number of page accesses needed for these actions per item of interest (article). It is notable that those who contribute the most to
To my understanding the comments are what makes slashdot interesting, to grab the latest news it is sufficient to go to the frontpage and thus view only one page or stand through just one annoying ad, or just go to other sites. Your system makes those activities most expensive (either in adverts the user is exposed to, or in pages he has to pay) that contribute the most to
- do less thorough or no metamoderating
- do less thorough or no moderating
- write less comments and not preview/edit them properly
This will make slashdot a poorer place, moderation will be worse, there will be less comments and less opinions. This will probably happen to some extent anyway, because of people leaving who neither want to pay, nor view adverts. But to charge those most who contribute for their contributions (in moderation and commenting) makes it even worse. I don't think it's far fetched, that manny moderators and commenters will revert to above methods to avoid costs/adverts, and that this will make slashdot less interesting (and thus also drive people away who were interested in the comments, and a well functioning comment system).
So if you must have adverts/subscriptions maybe you shoud try to avoid that effect (maybe by making those pages, that are needed for metamoderation, and especially commenting/previewing free (of fees and of overlarge adverts), maybe also introduce a special free moderation page (one page of newest/threshold zero/flat for an article)). I don't know how much a percentage those accesses make, and how much difference it would make to exclude them from ads/costs. But i think a well functioning comment/moderation system is vital to
--
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks