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.

Comments

Start your reading beforehand here

[Hangtime]

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.

Re:Start your reading beforehand here

[Sloppy]

'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.'

The problem with this comment is that it completely misses the point.

You aren't paying for Slashdot content. You're paying for the service. That is critical, and if you don't understand that, then subscriptions and ads indeed won't make any sense. So either accept it or reject it. (And if you reject it, then why are you here?)

Those who contribute the most content, use the most service, thus they should pay the most for the service. When you post something to Slashdot, you're costing Slashdot money.

As a seperate issue unrelated to server and bandwidth expenses, Slashdot does have some content problems. The editorial aspects are very poor quality (examples: see Taco's spelling, how he uses the word "then", and how well-checked things are before they're posted to the front page). And people who supply content (either as story submissions or informative comments) are not compensated for their effort, other than ego-stroking (e.g. seeing your name in lights, seeing your karma pinned at 50). (That people think ego-stroking isn't enough, is interesting, considering how many "open source" advocates there are around here.) Now, this is worth talking about and addressing. But it is a seperate issue from the server and bandwidth expenses.

Re:Ads test

[The Blue Meanie]

I believe that one of the /. editors had a little test of the new ads today.

I saw it, too. Hey, I really enjoy reading Slashdot, and if this is what it takes for them to survive, I'm fine with it. It certainly wasn't as obnoxious as it could have been. And think about it - at least they're going to give you the option of subscribing to make the ads go away. How many sites you visit every day don't give you a choice about it at all?

Use an IRC server nearby!

[Wizard of OS]

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 :)

Whats the long term solution?

[Psiren]

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.

Text ads.

[guhknew]

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...

Re:Text ads.

[Kanon]

Have you seen their new text ads? They don't get in the way, don't jump out of the screen screaming at you and most importantly of all have actually been interesting (The ones I've seen so far). I've been clicking them for the curiosity value.

They have a page where anyone can buy their own ($12 for 4000 impressions). http://www.kuro5hin.org/submitad

Now *that's* how it should be done. I hope it works for them.

Pay per page

[mikej]

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.

$12 Flat Rate - MANDATORY

[Knunov]

Forget the tiered approach. It's confusing and silly.

$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 /. reader that comes here specifically for his articles. He is fat. Cut him away and gain instant efficiency.

Knunov

Stick? No! Carrot? Yes!

[Dicky]

I've been reading Slashdot for quite a while now (yes, I've got a low UID - I started reading before UIDs existed). Sure, I refresh a lot, but it's mainly the front page, since so much of the content seems to be uninteresting to me nowadays - I don't know if it's my interests which have changed, or Slashdot's focus, probably a bit of both. I don't post too much any more, partly through dispair at the inanity of much of the content, partly through my growing annoyance with the way the site has been run, and largely because I choose to post in other fora, mainly on two mailing lists which constitute real communities, one a Linux list within my company, the other being the list of my LUG. This site is not a real community, and will never be - it may have been at some point in the past, but it certainly isn't now, as a single-minded (close to) autocracy, where the topics of discussion are chosen by a small, closed group, and staying on-topic and within the acceptable norms are enforced by moderators.

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:

• For foo's sake, hire a real editor, not a Perl hacker who ended up running a web site with 250000 readers, and have everything which goes on the front page run by them first. We all know how readable most Perl is - we need someone who's good at writing English!
• NNTP access. The excuse - and it has only ever been an excuse - for not providing one has been that no-one has worked out how to force ads down people's pipes over NNTP. I'll subscribe, so get no ads, but I want to read over NNTP.
• More real, technical content. Get rid of Katz, and pay someone with a clue to write interesting stuff.
• More open-ness. I want to hear what's going on, what's coming up, what's a problem, what's an unexpected bonus. I want an open discussion forum about the site - not one to constantly attack the 'editors', meaning they enter the discussion on the defensive, but an open discussion. To be honest, I'd like to know what the 'editors' do all day - there are 5-10 story posts a day (plus maybe another 5 in sections with volunteer editors), and I really can't work out how that's a full-time job.
• Early access to stories might be nice, so paying customers get to at least try to avoid the slashdot effect.
• I won't pay using PayPal - I know this has already been covered. I would really prefer not to pay using Dollars - I'm not in the US, and I don't really want to pay commission on my subscription. I reckon that taking Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Pounds Sterling and Euros would cover a very large majority of the Slashdot readership, whould encourage non-US subscriptions (over half the people on the 'net aren't in the USA). I've done a little bit of work for a charity on an on-line donation page, and we can take Dollars, Pounds, Euros are Shekels (it's a Jewish charity...) easily enough.
• I want some status info. Number of subscriptions, number of subscribers (these two are different - think about it), ideally some proper financial info like costs/revenue. I understand that the latter may be hard, but I would really like the other two.

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.

Being free is what makes it good.

[Jus'n]

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.

I've paid, and I have a few comments

[JanneM]

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.

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 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.

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 /. on the list.

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 /. 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.

/Janne

Re:Stick? No! Carrot? Yes!

[leviramsey]

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.

Re:Ads test

[MobyDisk]

And the ad is from doubleclick no less.

• DoubleClick Gets Into Spam
• Continuing Security Concerns at DoubleClick
• Which Ad Network Isn't Evil?

Advertising is a VERY complicated business.

[Futurepower(tm)]

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.

Are you the troll? Or just a leech?

[Chris Burke]

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:

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 /. subscription service was a missed opportunity to add something truly worth paying for.

The post wasn't about how the subscription service or the ads are heinous acts of evil by an ungrateful /. 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.

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, /. 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.

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 /.), 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?

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, /. 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.

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 /. how I always have.