Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot IRC Forum Today
Hemos and I are going to try to answer questions today at 3:00 PM EST, on
irc.slashnet.org in #forum. Specifically we're going to try to keep the questions on the subject of subscriptions. There are a lot of misunderstandings about
a few things, and we wanna clear them up. We'll post a log in this story after the forum is done. Any questions can be /msged to Questions the bot and forum discussion can be had in #forum.d.
This was much less intrusive than the awful pop-ups I envisioned when I read about the subsription service. As of the time of this posting the ad is no longer there.
Rob and Gang,
I would not mind paying for a subscription, but I will not pay a subscription just not to see ads. Personally, I can tune them out for $20. You boys and girls need to start your reading here at this article. It represents my views exactly. BTW, do not think about features individually to much, but in the aggregate. Features in the subscription will be the sum greater then the parts. Of course, if one feature costs more then the whole subscription base, then I wouldn't implement it but you get my point.
HT
DotComScoop
Last Friday Slashdot launched its long threatened ad free subscription service.
My first reaction was one of utter amazement; the complexity of the system is absolutely staggering.
'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.'
Companies such as Salon offer ad free viewing as part of their subscription service, but never has anyone introduced an ad free service that creates a direct link between the level of usage and the cost. Slashdot claims that this is the fairest way to do it, which at first glance may appear to be the case. However, as one reader points out:
'The problem that I see 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.'
To my mind he has hit the nail squarely on the head. A community discussion site is by definition primarily only as valuable as the contributions that are made to it. By tying payment to usage Slashdot has created a barrier to participation. Such a policy isn't community centric.
It is widely accepted that people prefer not to be 'nickel and dimed.' Internet Service Providers charge flat fees, 99% of online subscription services are flat fee based, as are the majority of cable subscription services. Why? Because forcing people to monitor their consumption detracts from the overall user experience.
One thing that you can be absolutely certain of is that Slashdot's new model is not designed from a perspective of how best to serve their readership.
On top of that, there is also the factor that ads can be blocked. Such a painful system can only further encourage the user base to do so.
What I don't understand is why they are being so incredibly negative? This subscription service is lose, lose, lose with no win in sight. Even Salon, whose business model I obsessively criticize, did at least offer something of additional value, if not much, on launching their subscription service.
Slashdot is not the first website to introduce a subscription service in an apologetic, negative, half-hearted, and bribing way. However, they are the only company that I can think of who have launched a service that doesn't add anything to the overall experience.
It is odd to me that many online companies seem to think that the only way to introduce subscription is to take something away from the user. As controversial as this may sound - it doesn't have to be that way.
Slashdot informs us that:
'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.'
Why focus on that as the primary mistake that can be made? I'd suggest that alienating your readership is the ultimate sin. Furthermore, whether they like it or not, companies have to invest to gain return. You can't expect people to hand over cash unless you are prepared to create something that is worth paying for.
Slashdot is in a unique position, and one that they should be able to build upon in a positive way. What is shocking to me is that they appear to realize this, yet still insist on acting in this lame manner.
'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.'
Translated: We have introduced this system as it appeared to be the easiest way to milk our cash cow, and will at a later stage introduce a proper subscription model if and when we can be bothered.
I'm sorry, but my respect for these guys plummeted substantially when I read that. They have a golden opportunity to create a viable business but instead insist on acting like a bunch of amateurs.
Let me make my position absolutely clear. There is nothing wrong with introducing a subscription service, but for god sake if you are going to do so, offer something of additional value. Slashdot's service is stick, stick, stick, and perhaps a carrot later, if you're lucky. You just can't behave like that and expect to be successful. This whole thing is just a mess; poorly conceived, unnecessarily complex, badly presented, and will almost certainly do them more damage than good.
My recommendation: Go back to the drawing board immediately.
the End Of All Life as we know it, the sky caving in, instant Armageddon, the Dogs of War set loose and the Gates of Hell thrown wide open - Slashdot is going pay-per-view!!!!!
Well, that's my first response - I'm sure if you attend the chat then Hemos and Taco will say it's not that bad.
insignificant sig
A little bit of karma whoring, but as a SlashNET server administrator I'd like to point out that we have servers in the U.S.A., Europe and Australia. So, use:
:)
- eu.slashnet.org
- us.slashnet.org
- au.slashnet.org
You may also check out our brand new fancy website at www.slashnet.org for more information
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
Ad just don't work. I have *never* bought anything from a banner on any website. More often than not I'm looking for information when I'm on the web, and impulse purchases are the last thing on my mind.
Also, there's no way I'll pay any amount to view a website. Call me a tight fisted git if you like, but there it is. There is always another news site to visit if this one becomes unusable. The only thing that really keeps me here is the comments. I find some very useful information in them on occasion.
So anyway, whats the long term solution? I'd be suprised if that many people pay for a subscription. 1000 pages? Geez, I reload at least 30 times a day. Wouldn't take me long to use up that limit.
How about putting a little FAQ up now, to fend of the most blatant misunderstandings and get the discussion off on a good start? That might to some extent avoid addressing irrelevant issues in the discussion and make it more focused since people come there a little prepared and already have the basics pat. I think there will still be enough left to discuss ...
---
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Granted now I never ever click on a banner ad.. But I dunt click on my television screen either(well while sober) but occasionaly i'll see a banner ad and i will type in the url or go to the website if its sumthin i'm interested in or catches my fancy as i'm sure its the same for lots of people.. I wonder if one of the main reasons people don't actually clock on the banners(i know its my reason) is that i don't want them to keep that kinda information on me :) simple as that. but ads are still effective.
On another note, kuro5hin.org is moving to text ads (from no ads). It works under the principle that annoying your readership until they're so pissed that they don't come back anymore is not a good idea. Maybe slashdot could learn a lessons from this...
Why don't we opt in for ads? So far, every time I see someone post about blocking the ads, or eliminating pop-ups - some self-rightous Don ?Quixotes come riding out of the dust and flame those that dare complain about ads.
So why not make them opt in? With all these rabid followers they should be enough to pay the bills around here?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Slashdot is a community based site.
Community participation equals a better site.
A better site equals larger reading base.
Take this three statements and apply them.
I won't mind paying 10-20 dollars a year to view slashdot without ads. Period. Anything extra you add to the subscription from there on in is bonus to me.
Now everybody else listen. A site operator that cared more about profits and such would have played his cards differently then Taco and gang have. They would have introduced the most obtrusive and annoying ads possible for a couple weeks claiming "The site needs it to survive." Then a few weeks or so after their introduction, they would have conviently come up with the idea of 'subscriptions'. They would say "Well, you hate the ads, right? Here's how you can get rid of them." In a buisness sense, that would have been the smart move.
But no, as can be seen in Taco's original post, Taco seems to care about fairness first. Letting a viewer base know beforehand, about the obtrusive ads that may plague them? Not a good buisness move. But it is an honest one.
Now what Taco and Co. need to know now is that we don't want pay-per-view Slashdot, we want $20 a year "pay for and forget about" Slashdot. We don't want to be reminded that we just spent $.02 last nite. We just want to know that we are helping.
You really need another option for the poll ... I subscribed but I won't re-up because I don't see the value.
... I don't see the value. I have now seen the ads, and well, I likely won't be back, either. If I have to put up with ads, I might as well go for "real" news sources rather than, well, here. I'm not getting a value for "subscribe for no ads".
The page view thing is good for occasional readers, but you really need a time one, too, if you are going to do this. Any plans?
However, I likely won't be re-upping
If I come back, it will be with an ad blocker.
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
4 words easily explain why a flat-rate plan will never work for slashdot:
username: cypherpunks
password: cypherpunks
What's to stop someone from signing up with one account and distributing the authentication information to all their friends? Complicated, expensive technical measures I suppose, but that chews away their profit.
I've been thinking about this over the past few days, and I can't think of any way other than per-page that slashdot subscriptions can work. It may very well be that per-page won't work either, in which case we all get a lesson in capitalism.
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
Forget the tiered approach. It's confusing and silly.
/. reader that comes here specifically for his articles. He is fat. Cut him away and gain instant efficiency.
$12 per year, $1 per month, for unlimited access. Cheap, simple and should be profitable.
Even if you keep only 100,000 readers, that's $1.2MN per year. If this scruffy site can't survive on $1.2MN in revenue per year, you have other problems. The easiest remedy to which would be the firing of Jon Katz. Seriously, there is not a single
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
I am frankly disgusted by the lack of professionalism shown by the people running this site - it's okay to be kooky when you're running a site as a spare-time activity, and not too bad when it's free to readers and paid for by advertising. I will not pay to support this site when the actual content (excluding Jon Katz, who simply writes unreadable pap) is all written by users, when the spelling and grammer remain at a childish level, when there is no open-ness in the site. The new ads are annoying enough that I now have the Junkbuster running on my machine at work (and have encouraged my colleagues who read Slashdot to use me as a proxy). I am a natural Slashdot reader, a Unix professional (and yes, I take pride in my work - do the editors here?), affluent and free-spending online, but I only come here because of the content which is supplied by the users.
I will not respond to the stick. I will not subscribe to get rid of ads - I have a technical solution to that problem, so why should I be forced into a financial solution? I'm an engineer - I solve things technically.
I will respond to the carrot. Don't say "subscribe or bad things will happen". Say "subscribe and good things will happen". Some possible examples:
Overall, the two main problems I have are that I refuse, on principle, to respond to the stick, but I'd welcome to carrot, and I'd like to see the staff taking things a little more seriously. Not high-and-mighty serious, but trying to do a professional job serious.
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
I have a real problem with anyone using ad blockers, especially at community sites like Slashdot.
Slashdot agrees to give you content, if you view the ads. If you don't want to view the ads, don't look at the content. Using an ad blocker just screws Slashdot out of their cut.
There seems to be this view of "I shouldn't have to pay for anything, whine whine whine" (and before you say it: I have bought copies of Slackware, RedHat, Debian, FreeBSD, BeOS, several pieces of shareware...) Well, sorry everyone - things actually cost money. And even if they didn't, it's Slashdot's right to charge if they want to.
If you don't like it, fine, but don't go and screw them out of their cut. That *is* theft, whether you admit to it or not.
As for the subscriptions, I would subscribe, but not on a pay-per-view basis. Monthly, fine, yearly, fine, but not pay-per-view. I won't subscribe with that.
But I'll happily view the ads they send me, and keep up my end of the bargain. Remember, the world does not owe you everything for free.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
but the idea isn't bad.
.75.
example 1: I post once on a new acct, get a five (net points of four), and bingo, my score is four.
example 2: I post 40 times, have the +1 bonus, so after 10 "5" postings, and the rest unmoderated (net: 30), my score is
Which is more valuable? A weighted average with total points makes a little more sense, but only knows what that might be.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Ask about this before they introduced subscriptions? (Ask Slashot story?) Maybe there would be less constigation about it now. Maybe they might have gotten some useful ideas. There's surely flaws in the current scheme since it requires the people who contribute the most to pay the most. I think they should have unlimited karma accrual (instead of a limit of 50), and that karma should be good for buying pageviews. That would probably be more equitable and probably wiser in the longrun.
I can't do irc, but if someone can be bothered, maybe they could ask about this.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
I've noticed a BIG trend in the post-boom IT industry where those free service providers who rose to the top of their field think that if they start charging, they'll STAY as good as they were. They don't seem to realize that in every single case, they reason they were so popular is that they were free. Take Yahoo! Personals for example. I'll admit it... I had a lot of fun there a few years ago. I met a lot of extremely strange and interesting people through their free service. I've had a very serious girlfriend for the past 3 years now, but I recently poked my head back in there for kicks, to maybe expand my social circle again, and meet some people my g/f and I could hang out with. I posted an ad, and was perplexed at the fact that I got no responses. In the "good old days," I'd get at least 1 a day. Granted, I was single then, and I imagine most people went to Yahoo! Personals to get laid, but still! Then I got hit by a survey (they wanted to know how people liked the new structure) and I discovered that you have to PAY to respond to the ads. Consequence? What used to be a fantastic place to meet psychos and weirdos (and I happen to like weirdos) became a no-man's-land of horny AOL-wannabes where no one connects (and Yahoo! can't be making much money off of it!).
So how does this apply to slashdot? Well, it's great now, because of the, what, 250,000 readers, I'd say a least 1% are contributors, either in stories or in comments. Of those perhaps 25,000, a goodly portion are intelligent, or at least fun to argue with. Also, those perhaps 25,000 community members come up with some very interesting stories to submit, giving us good topics to flame each other about. If Slashdot makes it inconvenient and/or expensive to participate, well, guess what -- participation goes down. Sure, they think slashdot provides such a great service and such great information and they think they can turn a profit off of that, but the proverbial "they" may forget how much of that "provided" value is actually provided by the community which uses slashdot. If the community shrank by 90% (which it probably would if, for example, they REQUIRED subscription), I seriously doubt that slashdot would still hold my interest. Yes, I realize that's not what they're suggesting, but if participation drops by say 33% because they spew ads at non-subscribers, it will have the same effect, to a somewhat lesser degree.
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." --Voltaire
On reflection, they seem to have the right idea. What Slashdot is doing seems doubly alienating. First, you're selling the audience to advertisers with big annoying ads. Then, you're selling the audience the ability to escape the big annoying ads for a fee. Of course, if this works, you make money off both ends. But if it doesn't work, you anger both the audience and the advertisers, who get a feeling that they are being played-off against one another, and neither deriving any benefit from the transaction.
Look, bluntly, I wouldn't pay Slashdot to have ad-free pages. It's just not worth it. People really can give up Slashdot, if it becomes too annoying. I would pay, gladly, a similar amount to do something like Kuro5hin.org is doing - advertise to fellow community members in an affordable way (I would gloriously, with a big smile, pay that sort of money to run a Slashdot text ad about What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org))
Now, right off, I'm probably among those 3% of high-volume users; I paid the same day it was announced, I only disable ads on the frontpage, and I've used up 149 of my pageviews already. For me, this is looking like around $5 a month if I keep it up.
/. - I find myself surfing less and less to slashdot. No longer do I reload the page just to see if anything new is up; instead, I rely more and more on the rdf feed I have on Evolution. I've also started clicking straight to the stories, rather than go via the frontpage, thereby missing any other stuff happening in my rdf boxes on slashdot.
/. on the list.
/. back, so I'm going to burn through those pageviews I have, and then not pay for another set. If I can get the option to pay per month or something similar - and especially if they eventually implement some interesting perk for paying - then I'm in again. Until then, I just find this scheme cramps my surfing habits too much. Ridiculous, I know.
And that's the problem. As I know I'm using up my ad-free page views - even though I paid only to support
I have a sort of set click routine when I'm bored, where I go through a set number of sites (/., LinuxToday, New York Times, Dn, and so on), lookig for anything interesting to read (this is sort of the same behavior as zapping through the channels on a tv). I've stopped including
Now, I know it's only $5, and I didn't even really pay to remove the ads, but just for supporting a favourite site. It doesn't matter. Psychologically this has set up a resistance to wantonly going to slashdot unless I have a good reason to be there.
The problem is that I'm paying for a set number of pageviews. I estimate (as above) that for my normal surfing habits, it'd cost me about $5 a month to keep this up. I would, however, _much_ rather pay for a set time than for a number of impressions.
I want my
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I think the word "subscription" is the wrong word to use for Slashdot's new pay-per-view system.
A "subscription" implies that you're receiving something you otherwise wouldn't have received. For example, if I have a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens, I'm getting the magazine at all. If I don't subscribe, I don't get a "free" copy of it in the mail, but with ads.
The same happens with a newspaper. I don't have the time to read the newspaper every morning, so I don't have a subscription to it. I wish that the Dayton Daily News would given me a "free" copy full of ads in case I wanted to read it, but that's not the case.
Calling the new Slashdot system a "subscription" implies that you have to pay for it if you want to read it, which isn't the case. If you don't mind the ads, and even think that some of the ads on Slashdot are worthwhile (like I do), then you're free to not pay. That's not the case with every other subscription-based service out there.
I think Slashdot should rephrase the system as the Slashdot "Tip Jar". If you want to pay $5 into the Tip Jar, Slashdot will "thank you" by giving you 1,000 pages without ads. If you don't want to leave $5 in the Tip Jar, that's fine too.
Calling the current subscription system a "Tip Jar" makes it sound more like what it is - a way to pay for the content on Slashdot if you desire. It's not a requirement to receive content at all.
Just my two cents.
One change which could be made (and would it be noticed? It could be in place now, for all I know) would be to have paying subscribers get a "live" feed (aka as soon as it's posted, subscribers can read and reply). Logged-in users get a 5 minute delay. AC's get a 15 minute delay. This eliminates some of the first post conditions (maybe a prohibition of anonymous posting in the first 5 minutes or until, say 10 logged comments have been posted is a good idea...), and means that if the trolls want to post early, they'll probably have to pay.
I'm going to openly admit my willful ignorance of the subscription issue. I probably won't pay for the site, if there's ads, I'll just block them, and if I can't do that, I'll move elsewhere. The value-add to my day right now isn't that high - slashdot is an interesting way to fill boring spaces in work. I might pay for higher quality content, pictures of Jon Katz being forced to read war and peace 5000 times, etc - that would require real editors, producing real content, maybe some technial articles.
There's too many replacements now.. I can just read the EE times all day, too. And block their ads. Ha.
What I see happening here is Slashdot is going to fill up the compuserve model from the old days. For us old geezers (ha, I'm only 25 and feel old) who remember Quantum Link, those services were basically just BBS systems on crack. They had lots of files, lots of people, lots of topics - but they weren't personal. What happened was that small BBSes with people in the local community sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain. I can see the same thing happening if slashdot goes to a commercial model - there will be an untapped demand, and lots of tools to fill it.
Folks, anyone can run a weblog site now.. I just finished configuring a scoop site (nicer than slash IMHO) for work. It's no big deal to kick a old pentium under a desk and start up a little local community.. this is happening all over as we speak. Slashdot is unique in the sheer volume of people it brings to the table.. anything which impacts the number of contributing users decreases it's only competitive advantage other than brand recognition.
Think long and hard about the subscriptions, guys. There's lots of content that I would pay here, but let me tell you, you're going to need a better carrot than "pay me or look at crappy ads". Make the pitch to the value-added service for the subscription and I might bite though.. for tips, you could start at perhaps letting paying users vote on stories in the submission queue, getting some real stories from real writers in there, and paying SOMEONE to check the front page for errors and duped submissions..
..don't panic
I agree with Wire Tap. (See the parent post.)
Slashdot Editors: You are obviously smart people, but that doesn't automatically mean you know everything. Advertising is a VERY complicated business of creating a connnection between a company and prospective customers. You are showing, very clearly, that you know NOTHING about good advertising. That is entirely okay; no one can know everything about everything.
But, this can have VERY unpleasant consequences for Slashdot authors and the entire Slashdot community. Get help! If you want free help, contact me.
First, I saw the woman whose agency has the IBM advertising account interviewed on the Charlie Rose show. She knows and cares NOTHING about technical products. She is making fools of IBM executives with those stupid ads of dorky-looking guys in space suits.
Slashdot editors, you can let yourselves off the hook. If IBM executives are clueless about technical advertising, you don't need to worry that you don't understand it either. (However, remember that IBM top management is composed of people with no technical background, unlike Slashdot editors. At least you have half the knowledge that is required. Remember that IBM ran OS/2 into the ground with stupid marketing, calling it "Warp", a term for something that is useless because it is bent.)
It may be that executives of your parent company, having failed at their own endeavors, have a subtle desire to destroy Slashdot. Obviously they are clueless about making Slashdot pay a reasonable return. (For example, they try to sell us high-caffeine candy. Caffeine is a chemical made by tropical plants to discourage insects. It interferes with the normal functioning of their nervous systems, as it does human nervous systems. Yes, there are people who buy such things, but those people are misguided. Using strong chemicals to force your body to submit is not a good strategy. Trying to sell things that are bad for the customer is not a good strategy either.
There is a HUGE need for advertising of technical products. There is money in this field! For example, check out the hardware firewalls available, and get advertising from the ones that are good. Plenty of us work in situations where such products are needed. Good advertising, if properly done, is a big help to the reader, not an annoyance.
Maybe now is the time to negotiate the sale of Slashdot to some other company that has a better understanding of the issues. Slashdot is an extremely valuable resource! Yes it has shortcomings (such as editors who don't spell check), but it is extemely valuable!
Board of Directors: I hereby apply to be CEO of Slashdot's parent company. OSDN says it is:
"#2 for delivering people who look for General / Politcal News* "
I kid you not! That's what it says! See the Advertising page.
My first qualification is that I know how to spell the word political.
Slashdot editors: I recommend "Confessions of an Adverising Man" by David Ogilvy. It's an old book, but good. It's a difficult field. Learn it.
Bush's education improvements were
The more the content gets lost in the noise, the more the visitors lose intrest. If this keeps up, it may be time to move on. People are here for the rich content. Over dilute it and the attraction rapidly fades. That's why I do not visit MP3.com. There is no real content. Everyting seems to be a teaser advertisement. TV has become a wasteland of product placement and mega blocks of ads and paid infomercials, I no longer watch it. I'd hate to see Slashdot face the same fate of smaller viewership, thus they must sell more ad space to make up for the lost revenue of fewer impressions, spiral of death. Without viewers the ad space is worthless.
The truth shall set you free!
Hey kiddies, how about a bedtime story?
... Slashdot was a pioneer in the digital "community" game. Information was shared, knowledge was spread, questions were answered, friendships were made, and everything was bright and sunny.
... it just got rid of the ads. And, to drive the point home, the ads started to switch from unobtrusive banners to pop-ups and embedded graphics. "Pay us," cried the Slashdot gnomes, "or we will bother you with intrusive dreck!"
... instead of pity and derision.
Once upon a time there was a website called Slashdot. In fact, it was MORE than a website
Now, everyone knew that bandwidth wasn't free. So Slashdot, like many sites, had banner ads at the top of the screen. Now most users didn't mind the ads at all. They were informative, often interesting, and promoted products that the geeks and wireheads couldn't find anywhere else. Even if they didn't actually click through on an ad, most of the readers saw the banners more as content than advertising.
But, children, there was a fundamental flaw. Unlike virtually every other form of media, web advertising at the time only paid if your readers acted on the ad! So - when Slashdot's corporate masters decided that there weren't enough people acting on the ads, Slashdot moved to a subscription service.
Now, your subscription didn't get you more value, or new content, or even a chance to sit on an editorial board and maybe get rid of that untalented and unreadable hack Katz
Can you guess what happened, kiddies? That's right! All the users, who USED to see the old ads, started blocking the new ads because they annoyed them. And nobody paid for the subscriptions, because you didn't really get anything for your money, and the more you contributed to the community, the faster your subscrition got used up!
Eventually, with the all the new ads blocked, and subscriptions going wanting, Slashdot dried up and blew away.
The moral of the story? If there is a problem with the way the web revenue game works, then FIX the game, don't try and make your users play it. The idea of getting paid ONLY if an ad is acted upon is inane. TV doesn't work that way, radio doesn't work that way, print media doesn't work that way. Be the ones that break the barrier and bring web advertising in line with the rest of the media world. Or go down in flames trying. At least then you would be remembered with respect
-- There are two kinds of motorcycles. 1: German. 2: Crap.
It is not. It is pay-per-view. It is disingenuous to say you are offering a subscription when that is not an option. I would happily subscribe at a reasonable fee (say $20-$30 per year), but I am strongly against pay-per-view.
It sounds like you didn't read what he said at all. Or at least you didn't read it with an open mind. Because you certainly didn't grasp what he was saying. I deduce this because you said:
/. subscription service was a missed opportunity to add something truly worth paying for.
/. staff... It was about how you can make a subscription service successful. You do it by making things people want, not by making things they want to get rid of. Because they may not owe us, but we sure as hell don't owe them.
/. would be mentioned on every tech site in existance? Not a chance. Because without the comments -- the community -- /. would just be a standard news portal like Ars, the Reg, or any others, except very, very shitty.
/.), but they add good commentary to their news-linkage. What would /. have, if it wasn't for us? I'll give you a hint: We already know, and it was called "Chips and Dips". Do you see VA paying for that?
/. will be dead in a week. Sure, sure, Taco has to maintain the code and stuff, all of which I don't have to do... That's why he gets paid for his contributions to /., and I don't. That doesn't make me a leech. It makes me a volunteer.
/. how I always have.
These people don't owe us anything;
No shit. He wasn't saying they -owe- us, he was saying charging a subscription fee which doesn't offer you anything is a stupid business model. The
The post wasn't about how the subscription service or the ads are heinous acts of evil by an ungrateful
we aren't a "community," we a bunch of freaking bandwidth leeches who sit here and suck down knowledge and commentary all day.
Speak for yourself, Geek In Training. You may be a leech, but I'm not. I'm one of the apparently less than 3000 (acording to Taco) people who contribute to this site. Depending on who you ask what I post may be worth reading or not, but I'm not a crapflooder and I'm not a troll, and I'm not even a karma whore. I and the rest of those 3000 (minus the crapflooders etc) are the ones who make slashdot what it is.
Do you think that if it wasn't for what we're writting here,
No, I mean really. Would you tolerate a news portal with as many factual errors, spelling and grammar errors, broken links, and repeats if that was all it was? The Reg has a lot of typos (by the standards of journalism, not
So we damn well better be a "community", because if we aren't this site isn't shit. If this "community" gets up and leaves,
Now, I'm perfectly happy being a volunteer. It's not like I just figured out that I am one; if I had a problem with it, I would have left a long time ago. But then you- You say you're willing to let yourself be annoyed into paying money for your volunteer work. You're not going to pay because you're getting something you want, but because you're being poked with a pointy stick until you give them $5 so they'll stop for a while. And the clear message you're giving is "if I don't cough up the dough, then you should just increase the size and pointiness of the stick." Well, you, being just a leech, might think that's okay. Maybe you feel guilty for leeching. Maybe you're just the kind of spineless mark salesmen love who'll buy the overpriced TV just to get the salesman off your back. But I, being a volunteer, have a different view: Fuck that.
/. is a great site. But it's great because of the community, as disparate and cantankerous as we are. Taco and co. -- they provide the means, the capability. We use those means to provide the content. That's what makes this site what it is. And you want to talk about owe?
Forget about oweing. I don't owe Taco shit. Frankly, he doesn't owe me anything either. So given this neutral agreement, why the fuck would I pay this man just to stop annoying me? That's right, I wouldn't. I'll block the annoyance with mozilla, maintain the neutral relationship, and keep using
The enemies of Democracy are
Ads don't bother me too much. They bother some people alot. Some of the most vocal users here are almost militant in there views on spam and ads. And now /. is doing the very thing that most people come here to deride. /. is becoming the very thing that it's own userbase depises.
/. isn't the place to build brand recognition within the IT/OSS community across all continents, I don't know what is.
/.'s front page? Being in a non-US country I get the pleasure of paying duty and tariffs despite our wonderful NAFTA agreement. I dont want to pay $50-60 CDN for a bloody t-shirt from thinkgeek. But if I ever want to splurge, I know where to go. Brand recognition.
/. is nice to kill time with, interesting and funny at times. But linking to other site's stories submitted by your own users, then editorially embellishing the headline to get the anti-microsofties frothing at the mouth is not worth a subscription.
If I pay, I never want to see a goatse link again. I dont want to be modded down, in fact a subscription should negate karma altogether. Mod me up, let the thread see the results, but I never wanna have to deal with karma again. Stupid system, I feel like Pavlov's dog.
I want real stories, real editors, real grammar, and real spell-checking. Stories should be spell-checked, and so too should comments. There is nothing worse than having to read thrug sumonz awfull post to figguere out wy thye were modded intrsting.
Threatening to berate me with ads wont make me pay. If TV, print, and radio can get by without click-through, so can the web. A multi-million (maybe billion nowadays?) dollar industry is built up around creating brand recognition. If
You can be sure that when I can scrape enough together every month to afford the $US to buy a rack at rackpace, I will. And guess where the name recognition for rackspace came from? Guess what site I "clicked-through" to investigate rackspace. SLASHDOT.
I put up with (read: ignore) commercials in all media, not just the web. I don't see the advert industry taking a nodedive anytime soon. Radio station *give* money away fer craps sake! I don't drop the mag/newspaper/run out the door everytime an ad for Smirnoff invades one of my five senses, so why should I buy a t-shirt that says "WTF" everytime I decide to see what's on
Do whatever you feel guys, I dont need an ad blocker, my mind does that just fine. I promise not to block the ads, but I won't promise to buy crap I can't afford or don't need. Load it up with banners and javascript to make me click (ala porno) before reading a story. Your users will hate it. And they will go elsewhere. Napster is proof of that.
BTW, did you guys even *try* a tip-jar? ( I realise that maybe this isn't your decision, maybe it's coming from on high, and they want revenue, not tips.) But still...
This comment on the parent thread says it all:
... Having to chose either Space Mountain or The Materhorn (but not enough tickets for both). Even if you had ample tickets -- you were still subject to a "nervous tick" that made you think the the tickets were going to run out.
It is widely accepted that people prefer not to be 'nickel and dimed.' Internet Service Providers charge flat fees, 99% of online subscription services are flat fee based, as are the majority of cable subscription services. Why? Because forcing people to monitor their consumption detracts from the overall user experience.
I remember going to Disneyland when you had to buy individual ride tickets instead of "all day passes"....It really made for a "nervous energy" that really took away from the experience
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
First of all, it would have been nice if you did this at a time when most of your viewers are at work. Nobody like to work on weekends, but this is important enough to set up on weekends. BTW most suscribers will be people who are working.
;)
You need Value add for subscriptions work.
1)suscribers get access to a mirror of the links in the story.
2)The ability to not see posts be non-suscribers, regardless of there rating.
3)Email me when a certian story is posted. I.E. if a NASA story is posted, shoot me an email.
4)put suscribers on there own machine when they connect.
5)Invite suscribers to the wedding
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on