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 ;)
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
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'
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.
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.
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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!
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.