...then the sites that refuse to switch to other forms of advertising will be locking themselves out of that much traffic and ad revenue.
You're ignoring the reality of the situation. I run a medium-size, ad-supported website. Last month, I made about $350 from popunder advertising, $70 from 468x60 banners.
I can't run the site on $70. I barely break even with the $420 total (hosting costs of $250, syndicated data costs of $200).
It seems like there is a mafia out there that is trying to stamp out every possible way that a site can support itself. Ad blockers also block affiliate links, so it isn't even possible for me to make money on sales commissions. What's left?
If there was enough money to be made from the non-pop ads, I'd definitely go that route. But if I can't make enough money to cover costs then my site goes away, and 200,000 monthly uniques won't be too happy about it. Plus, my material is not duplicated elsewhere, so they'll have to go without.
You may say "get another business model". Well, first off, I say "stop destroying the business model that I already have", and next, I ask you to show me a business model that allows end-users access to free content, and also compensates the websites, but with no advertising.
Isn't it possible no other model exists?
Picture this in 20 years:
"Daddy, is it true that there used to be this incredible source of information and entertainment that was completely free to use?"
"Yes son, it was called the Internet."
"Why doesn't it exist anymore"?
"Because the people who used it were spoiled. They wanted everything for free. They wouldn't even accept the placement of advertising on the internet, and actively worked to stop advertising from being used. They even prevented people from making sales commissions by referring customers to products."
To add to that, wait until the audits happen. Imagine a mom-and-pop being a candidate for an audit from all 50 states. I worked at a retailer who served 6-7 states, and we had sales tax auditors in our offices from each state at least once every 3-4 years.
They would say things like "historically, a store like yours has a breakdown of 80% taxable and 20% nontaxable goods. Your sales show that you are only submitting sales tax on 78% of your goods, so that means that you have to pay us sales tax on 2% of the goods that you sold in our state since the last time we audited you (usually 3-4 years ago).
In a way, a European visiting a US-based website is a bad thing for the website, because most advertising networks available to US-based sites have stopped serving advertising to non-North-American IPs. I guess their theory is that no one in Europe would want to buy a GM car, Verizon wireless, etc.
This is becoming more and more of a problem for websites (such as mine) that appeal to an international audience (hockey related). A few years ago when it seemed apparent that the future of the web was truly international, I included quite a bit of content for Europeans. But now that 30% of my traffic is from Europe, I'm finding that this traffic simply increases my server and bandwidth costs without providing me with a dime of income.
In retrospect, my European content was a mistake.
Until revenue can be derived from European visitors, I can't see people actively trying to recruit those European visitors.
When we (meaning the IT department at my company) monitors what users are doing, either on the internet, or anything else, they're not just doing it on company time... They're doing it with company computers.
You're right. By the way, when someone at the company is thinking about something that is non-work, they are doing it breathing company air, sitting at a company desk, being lit by company electricity and heated by company heat. I guess that means it's OK to develop a thought-monitoring device and use it against those ungrateful bastards...
I'm amazed. We have thousands of the world's best and brightest minds here, yet no one can come up with a better alternative to fund television than advertising.
There were a few other alternatives suggested, but all were actually more intrusive than commercials -- Buffy the Vampire slayer killing and then slamming down a Dew? C'mon.
"Sponsorship"? That's almost ridiculous -- why would you "sponsor" a TV show when you can't sell your product like you can in a commercial? How many people actually go out and buy a Budweiser because they "sponsor" a tennis tournament? Sponsorship is almost completely ineffective without commercials to reinforce the message.
Paying for the shows? Well, from the sampling here, people are willing to pay $0.50 per show and not much more. HBO was raised as an example of how paying for a network works out, but then again, what, are there about 20 hours (out of 744) of original programming on HBO per month? Plus, how many TV stations would there be if each one cost $15/month like HBO? Plenty of people may subscribe to a pay channel, but how many of you subscribe to 5, or 10 of them? Last I checked, I don't fix my tuner to a single network, I like shows on at least a dozen different channels. $15 x 12 networks is a lot more than I'm giving up now by watching commercials.
Could it possibly be that the advertising format is actually the optimal way for TV to be funded? If there was a better model, wouldn't it have been tried by now? If sponsorship was so great, why did it get phased out in the 50's? If product placement is so great, why aren't all shows stacked full of products? Why doesn't a network eliminate all commercials and use that as a way to attract audience?
Maybe because any other way to pay for the programming won't work.
So does it make sense to selfishly destroy TV as we know it through technology? Sure, we can do it. But should we? Why destroy TV just because we can?
So its obvious that they will go after the big file sharers. If you put one CD on KaZaA, they they won't bother with you. If you have 1,000 songs up there, they'll say 1 song = $2.50, 1000 songs = $2,500, and they'll subpoena you.
The law says:
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000.
That's subject to interpretation though; does a work worth $0.00001 posted on KaZaA fall under this penalty if there are 100,000,000 users of KaZaA? Or do they have to prove that 100,000,000 users actually downloaded it? I'd be willing to bet that since the law says "distribution", that means that $1,000 worth of piracy has to take place. It wouldn't count if the RIAA downloads the same $1 song 1,000 times, they have to document 1,000 different people downloading it.
I'm not in favor of file sharing, I'm just intrigured by this flap.
... too bad for the actors, they'll need to adapt to the times and learn different skills. They're no different than textile workers and computer programmers who get displaced by technology or foreign labor. If they can be recreated by Chinese computer programmers for 1/100th the cost of their salary, then they are going to have to learn to enjoy flipping burgers for a living. Oh yeah, until the cheap burger-flipping machines arrive.
Of course, I'm not a strict globalist, so I defintely feel for them. The lifespan on careers is so short these days that most people will see their careers destroyed at least once in their lifetime, and perhaps 2-3 times. Globalism never considers the human side of the equation, it just pushes us all towards "faster and cheaper" at breakneck paces.
So Japan has more wireless users than the US. Who cares? The US produces more NBA players than Japan -- does that mean that Japan needs to feel ashamed about that, and should spend time on trying to figure out why that is so?
For all I know this article could be a corporate shill -- The Seattle Times is in a joint operating agreement with the Hearst Coroporation, which seems to own a company called Mobility Technologies. Mobility Technologies "product" is a service so that "Travelers can access [Mobility Technologies] data on demand via the Internet or wireless media at www.traffic.com, and they can register for personalized data unique to their route." Hmm, look at this line in the article:
If someone developed an application where a user pressed one phone key to get the traffic report on Highway 520 and another to get conditions on Interstate 90, a decent number of commuters probably would pay 50 cents a month for that service.
Sounds exactly like what Mobility Technologies can offer as a service, doesn't it?
Bottom line -- a lot of companies bet on this so-called "wireless revolution", and lost. I don't know anyone who is experiencing a pain in their life that could be solved by typing things on a phone keypad. So it doesn't matter that this took off in Japan and Europe -- it's a waste of time here, and people know it.
Everyone tries to make an analogy as to what Gator is doing based on something that has happened in the past. Problem is, this is a brand new crime, only made possible by technology. There are no laws specifically geared towards this, nor are there laws that should apply (since existing laws were not written with the internet in mind).
The bottom line is that a company (Gator) is making a product that benefits by directly harming another party (web site owners) by either covering up advertising with its own ads, or by placing additional competetive advertising on the site (or as a result of the site showing). Gator does not own the content that it covers, nor does it have any agreement to use this content. Gator could not possibly exist without this content.
Could you picture the Right to Life group placing ads on Planned Parenthood's website showing pictures of aborted fetuses? Could you picture Exxon placing ads on Greenpeace's website? This is what Gator is doing, and its wrong, regardless of if the user agrees to it.
Gator is making money by diverting it from others. It doesn't matter that millions of individual users (not Gator) are doing this; A law should be passed that addresses companies that do damage using millions of users as their army.
Nevermind the BS about the "those people should get another business model". They have a business model. You're f*cking with it if you use Gator. You're f*cking with it if you use an ad blocker. It's as bad as telling a vending machine operator that he should figure out a more secure way of storing his candy, because you can get it for free by tipping it over. Or telling the cable company that they should figure out a new business model, because you can just run a wire to your neighbor's house to get free cable.
Some things are just plain wrong, yet selfish people always figure out a way to rationalize their actions:
"I don't want to see those ads, I didn't authorize them on my browser, so I have the right to install a banner blocker".
No, if you don't want to see those ads, you have the right to not visit the site, period.
I agree with the sentiment -- I actually purchased the album based on favorable reviews and buzz (which I now suspect were generated by the media conglomeration that probably also owns the record label). I played it once in my car CD player, didn't hear anything even remotely interesting, and it remains today in the back seat of my card.
When I bought Play, I played it once, and immediately played it again because I liked it so much.
It may have something to do with the fact that I don't listen to music radio anymore because they play nearly 100% crap (some local stations are even playing "sponsored" music, which means that the label pays to have the song played!), so that means I haven't been exposed to the songs enough to recognize them. I doubt that any of the Clear Channel stations in my area even are playing tracks from the album (we have no electronic/progrssive stations, just metal, classic rock, metal, r&b pop, metal and country. Oh, did I mention metal?). But whatever it is, I really have no desire to listen to the CD, even though I already own it!
If the music truly isn't as good as Play, wouldn't that be a better explanation as to why sales are down?
It's also so bad because the technology (i.e. languages) keep changing rapidly and dramatically. This isn't the case of someone developing a better hammer, this is like someone developing a completely new toolbox full of tools every 2 years. People need 6 months to get completely up to speed on how to use these tools properly, but there's never enough time to actually train someone (i.e. not just a 1 day course) on how to use them.
Re:what is wrong with you people
on
Baked Alaska
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· Score: 1
Why does this surprise you? I have seen diatribes on/. launched against web sites that are failing in the advertising market ("they should get a real business model"), against industries (textiles, callcenters, coders) that are being shifted to developing nations ("those people should update their skills and learn to adapt"), and against record companies who are livid that people are giving their property away ("the music companies should embrace technology, and not try to fight change").
Given the attitudes previously expressed here, why do you think that anyone would say anything other than "those people should either learn to live in a warmer climate or should move"?
Re:VC's usually made out like bandits
on
The Venture Cafe
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· Score: 1
From the review:
So, when these high-tech entrepreneurs succeed at solving a problem and creating a solution and getting the product to market, and achieving a liquidity event, they make money for their investors.
And this statement proves it the "bandits" theory. Don't start a business to actually be viable, to employ people, to try and add to the public good. Instead, start a company so that you can get it "to liquidity" and then get out with your money.
If you were actually paying attention during the dot-com era, most of these companies actually made it their sole corporate goal -- to bring the company public. That's the only reason they were started, so the founders could cash out.
It's even worse than people think it is. From the article:
After all, 93 percent of all houses are already heated by eco-friendly geothermal energy.
So they are saying that they will take 30-40 years to remove themselves from dependence on oil, even though they are the country with the best starting point to do this (considering that they are situated in geothermal heaven).
It's now clear to me now why regular radio sucks, and why I have stopped listening to radio altogether (and hence have stopped buying CD's). Since the record companies are force-feeding a very limited playlist down my throat, and I have no choice in the matter (because the same songs are played on all CC stations), I just turn it off because I don't like it. I don't think that CC or the RIAA realizes that people behave like me though.
Mistake by CC: they play whatever is paid for, regardless of whether it sucks or not.
Mistake by RIAA: they push the most profitible music, regardless of whether it sucks or not.
Since the music I hear sucks, I don't listen to it. I don't buy it. Both CC and RIAA have lost me as a customer, and they don't seem to care.
Bad assumption by RIAA: If someone hears a song, even if it sucks, they will buy it.
Bad assumption by CC: people won't turn you off if you play sucky music because there's no alternative.
Too late. I'm not listening anymore and I'm not buying anymore. I've found other things to occupy my time and better things to buy with my money.
I just don't get it. The RIAA is getting killed by Clear Channel because CC is so big. Yet by requesting huge payments from webcasters they are moving to raise the bar for entry into the broadcasting business, assuring that only companies the size of CC can play in the game.
If the RIAA was smart, they would be using tens of thousands of foot soldiers (i.e. small webcasters) in their war against CC. They would try to get their music played as much as possible instead of trying to control who does play it.
Diversification! Don't rely on the two-ton gorilla, instead rely on 20,000 monkeys, because if you lose a monkey or two, you still can get the job done, but if you lose your gorilla you're screwed.
Its as though the marketing VPs and the accounting VPs at the RIAA don't talk to each other. The marketing VPs should be getting as many people to buy CDs as possible, and the best way is by getting people to hear the music.
The accounting VPs are trying to figure out how to get more money in their coffers, and their best shot at it is to charge people more for playing their music. They haven't figured out that charging people will cause less to play the music, and that will kill CD sales because people won't listen.
They truly deserve this mess if they can't see that.
TV shows are largely, if not completely, free for the viewer. If I want them without the ads, I can always buy the boxed DVD when it comes out.
Keep in mind, too, that the DVD box set of Friends is only able to be offered for $50 because the show was paid for by advertising in its original run and in reruns. If that money didn't exist, it would probably cost $500-1000.
The advertising world is rapidly approaching the point when they are going to have to realize that TV ads are not >>nearly as effective as they thought they were.
Let's assume you're right. I don't see TV becoming pay-per-show, so that means that TV is essentially finished.
Without advertising sponsorship, most media goes away. TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, internet. None of these media have the capacity to support themselves without advertising, and any attempted alternative that omits advertising is too damaging to the medium that it won't work either in the same way.
How much do you think a monthly magazine with no advertising would cost? Far more than the current $3-5 cover price. Probably more like $15-20. How about a daily newspaper? Maybe $5-10. A first-run TV show? $20-25? I'm making the numbers up, and only loosely basing them on how much other items (books, trade journals mostly) cost when produced in similar non-mass-market volumes. But the point is that if we don't have advertising, we have to be prepared to either give up media or pay a lot more for it.
Did you ever think that there's a reason that the page can't be viewed with cookies off? Maybe they are trying to block people with ad-blocking software installed. You shouldn't have copied the article to/., that is wholesale copyright violation -- you're depriving them of revenue that they would have received if thousands of/.'ers went to their site.
This means that buying stuff from the US can work out cheaper than buying it from your own country. So, by forcing US companies to tax EU citizens on purchases, this will force consumers to buy from e-commerce sites in the EU.
I don't dispute your point; if US companies don't charge the tax, European companies are definitely at a disadvantage. It also would prevent the EU from raising taxes to, say 50%, because that would cause everyone to start buying from the US.
However, the proposal (as I've read about it) is very one-sided. It neglects to take any account the fact that the merchant has to:
1) Know the tax rates of every EU country, and keep up to date on them.
2) Send money to these countries at some point in time -- when, monthly? Yearly? Maybe not all on the same schedule. And for all I know the EU may specify that I have to pay in Euros, meaning that there could be conversion issues -- for example, if I collect $100 US in VAT, which is 150 Euros, and then by the time I pay it 150 Euros might cost me $150.
I haven't read the proposal, but this seems at least possible. Plus US banks aren't that friendly to those trying to send money out of the country, and frequently charge very high conversion rates.
Finally, it neglects to consider the fact that a government outside of the US is trying to govern US citizens. Now I realize that there is contact between the citizen and a EU citizen, but as a US citizen I have no ability to voice my opinion, through a vote, as to laws that are suddenly applying to me except to not sell to EU customers.
I'm troubled that the EU could "govern" me somehow just because I have some kind of relationship with an EU citizen. This is an important legal concept. Could this extend to other things, like, for example, running a web page that a EU citizen can view? Could I be pulled into German court because I have a page which glorifies Hitler, even though this is permissable in the US? (not that I'd want to make such a page, it's just an example). Could I be pulled into court because I cursed at someone on Usenet?
The law may be fair now, but it could definitely be changed. What if the EU decided to "tax" bytes transmitted to it via the internet? Although it's far-fetched, it's not outside the realm of possibility -- after all, who ever thought that they would try and force US citizens to collect their taxes?
I was under the impression that the money I pay to my cable company - Time Warner, which is a Turner enterprise in its own right - is passed along to the cable content providers in licensing fees.
C'mon, let's look at this realistically for a minute.
I pay $50/month for cable. I get over 100 channels. That's $0.50 per channel per month.
Let's say that there are 100 million households in the US that have cable. That's a pot of $5 billion per month, or $50 million per channel per month. Don't forget, the cable companies take a large portion of this for the expense of gathering and retransmitting the signals (cable lines and satellite dishes aren't cheap), but we'll ignore that for now.
Let's say that each channel runs 500 hours of programming per month. That's about 17 hours per day. Of course, it's not all original, but it is available for you to watch.
Now let's do the math. $50 million / 500 = $100,000. That means that for each hour of programming, cable fees can subsidize a maximum of $100,000 (and this number is probably at least 50% less once you take out the costs of the cable companies).
Do you think that it costs only $50,000 to create an episode of Friends? Or any other show out there with the exception of local cable access programs?
Now I know that my numbers aren't really correct because they don't take into consideration that there are reruns on TV 80-90% of the time. If only 20% of TV is original during a month (seems high, but sporting events probably bump this up), that means that the $100,000 per hour is really more like $500,000 per hour. But still, considering how many people go into producing a TV show (actors, writers, producers, editors, etc.), $500,000 per hour of original programming isn't going to buy you much.
This is wrong on so many levels. I can watch whatever the fuck I want to of the television programming you send into my house. If I want to watch only 3 minutes of CSPAN perday and nothing else, so be it. If I want to watch only the 5 or 6 interesting shows on the air, so be it. If I want to close my eyes and not watch the ads or find some other way to not watch them, too freakin bad for you! YOU were the one who decided that the volatile business model of selling advertising would bring you stable profits; you are the one taking the risk and putting together the programming together in the first place.
OK, you're technically correct. You certainly have the right to ignore the commercials. However, if you and everyone else choose to ignore the commercials, you can kiss TV goodbye. Devices that automatically skip the commercials, which are definitely legally grey, hasten the demise of TV. If the advertisers know that no one is watching the commercials, they stop advertising. With no ads, it's pretty hard to justify giving your content away for free, especially when it's extremly expensive to produce.
It's not enough to say "they have a lousy business model". That's a cop-out. That's like the CEO of a company, after laying off 10,000 workers, outsourcing the work to China, and terminating pension payments to retirees saying "Too bad, those people should have had a better financial plan". You may not like it, but there is no such thing as a free ride. You get the TV because you have to put up with the ads.
The bottom line is, the companies are allowing you to view their content for free in exchange for the ads (cable fees pay for cable access). You certainly can ignore the ads if you want, but as soon as you buy a device to strip them from the show, you're violating the contract between the TV station and you.
This is, by the way, 100% equivalent to using internet ad blockers. This is the classic ethical problem of the "free rider", where individuals, rationalizing that their actions don't matter, choose to not "pay" for service. Of course, if everyone took that path, the service would cease to exist.
Why is it that people who argue for stealing ("sharing") are never the ones who create any works in the first place? Why do they always want to share what others have with themselves?
I am constantly amazed at the selfishness of these people, wrapped up in noblelistic and academic language. "Music should be free, because no one owns an idea". "Books should be free, because otherwise writers are just slaves to corporations".
Just level with us and say what you really mean. "Books, music, and software should be free because I'm a cheap bastard and don't feel like paying for them if I can find a way to steal them and rationalize about it". Use as much rationalization as you need so that you can sleep at night, denying that you are stealing a single penny from anyone.
Illegal copying is theft. It is legally wrong, and is ethically wrong. This is exactly the "free riding" ethical dilema. You can argue that jumping a turnstyle isn't a crime because you don't cause the subway any more expenses by cheating your way on than if you didn't ride. You're hoping that someone else pays the cost so you get your service. It's still wrong.
... but they're also ignoring many other facets to this problem, so they're an easy target right now.
Look at the demographics that the RIAA has typically concentrated on -- teenagers. All the new stuff coming out these days is focused on the 12-16 year old crowd. How much money does this crowd realistically have? And how technically savvy are they? And how well-formed are their ethics?
That's the meat of the problem. It's not that everyone is stealing music (because everyone is not). It's that the main demographic of the RIAA is stealing music because they're just a bunch of kids who love music, who don't have any money, who have an abundeance of free time, who know how to do it, and who don't understand that what they're doing is wrong.
Here's where the RIAA needs to pull its head out of its butt. The solution to the problem is fairly easy:
1) Market to a different demographic -- perhaps people who actually have a source of revenue. Older people like music too. Stop making product that no one likes except people who only like to steal it. And change your ways so that some money actually goes to the artists so that the thiefs will actually feel bad that they're depriving their favorite band of money.
2) Develop new music for different demographics, and diversify the portfolios, especially what gets played on the radio. Since all I can hear on the radio is music marketed to 12-16 year olds, I've stopped listening to the radio and subsequently I don't buy many CD's anymore -- not because I don't like music, but because I don't like the crap that I'm being force-fed.
3) Ease up on the internet audio front. It is in the RIAA's best interest to allow webcasting of music because it is essentially FREE ADVERTISING! When song gets played to an audience, this is the only way that the audience will decide whether they like the music. I don't buy music because I've read about it -- I buy it because I've heard it, usually more than once.
Now the RIAA still does have a problem with the teenagers downloading music for free. I think it's within their rights to go after the big guns -- Napster, Kaaza, Morpheus, etc. Their problem is that they are absolutely obsessed with Timmy who e-mails a song to Bobby via IM. They have to realize that they can't stop that, and that a certain amount of that person-to-person trading is OK and probably sells albums.
And everyone else needs to realize that wholesale and widespread music trading is just plain wrong. I don't care about this "it's for the good of society" argument. I don't see music traders volunteering at homeless shelters. Those arguments are convenient excuses to get free music. Get used to the fact that in order to get music to keep, you're going to have to buy it. Put some effort into making that reality fit with the technology, rather than trying to fight it, because there is no way that you're going to be able to always get whatever music you want for free. The economics of that situation are impossible.
That assumes that all music is equal. It's not. The RIAA, even though it's a bunch of morons, manages to sign most good artists. Although it's possible to find good stuff not signed to an RIAA-controlled label, you're going to have to weed through a lot of crap to find it.
Slashdot Mirror
...then the sites that refuse to switch to other forms of advertising
will be locking themselves out of that much traffic and ad revenue.
You're ignoring the reality of the situation. I run a medium-size, ad-supported website. Last month, I made about $350 from popunder advertising, $70 from 468x60 banners.
I can't run the site on $70. I barely break even with the $420 total (hosting costs of $250, syndicated data costs of $200).
It seems like there is a mafia out there that is trying to stamp out every possible way that a site can support itself. Ad blockers also block affiliate links, so it isn't even possible for me to make money on sales commissions. What's left?
If there was enough money to be made from the non-pop ads, I'd definitely go that route. But if I can't make enough money to cover costs then my site goes away, and 200,000 monthly uniques won't be too happy about it. Plus, my material is not duplicated elsewhere, so they'll have to go without.
You may say "get another business model". Well, first off, I say "stop destroying the business model that I already have", and next, I ask you to show me a business model that allows end-users access to free content, and also compensates the websites, but with no advertising.
Isn't it possible no other model exists?
Picture this in 20 years:
"Daddy, is it true that there used to be this incredible source of information and entertainment that was completely free to use?"
"Yes son, it was called the Internet."
"Why doesn't it exist anymore"?
"Because the people who used it were spoiled. They wanted everything for free. They wouldn't even accept the placement of advertising on the internet, and actively worked to stop advertising from being used. They even prevented people from making sales commissions by referring customers to products."
"Why did they do that daddy?"
"I don't know son, I don't know."
To add to that, wait until the audits happen. Imagine a mom-and-pop being a candidate for an audit from all 50 states. I worked at a retailer who served 6-7 states, and we had sales tax auditors in our offices from each state at least once every 3-4 years.
They would say things like "historically, a store like yours has a breakdown of 80% taxable and 20% nontaxable goods. Your sales show that you are only submitting sales tax on 78% of your goods, so that means that you have to pay us sales tax on 2% of the goods that you sold in our state since the last time we audited you (usually 3-4 years ago).
It wasn't pretty!
In a way, a European visiting a US-based website is a bad thing for the website, because most advertising networks available to US-based sites have stopped serving advertising to non-North-American IPs. I guess their theory is that no one in Europe would want to buy a GM car, Verizon wireless, etc.
This is becoming more and more of a problem for websites (such as mine) that appeal to an international audience (hockey related). A few years ago when it seemed apparent that the future of the web was truly international, I included quite a bit of content for Europeans. But now that 30% of my traffic is from Europe, I'm finding that this traffic simply increases my server and bandwidth costs without providing me with a dime of income.
In retrospect, my European content was a mistake.
Until revenue can be derived from European visitors, I can't see people actively trying to recruit those European visitors.
When we (meaning the IT department at my company) monitors what users are doing, either on the internet, or anything else, they're not just doing it on company time... They're doing it with company computers.
You're right. By the way, when someone at the company is thinking about something that is non-work, they are doing it breathing company air, sitting at a company desk, being lit by company electricity and heated by company heat. I guess that means it's OK to develop a thought-monitoring device and use it against those ungrateful bastards...
I'm amazed. We have thousands of the world's best and brightest minds here, yet no one can come up with a better alternative to fund television than advertising.
There were a few other alternatives suggested, but all were actually more intrusive than commercials -- Buffy the Vampire slayer killing and then slamming down a Dew? C'mon.
"Sponsorship"? That's almost ridiculous -- why would you "sponsor" a TV show when you can't sell your product like you can in a commercial? How many people actually go out and buy a Budweiser because they "sponsor" a tennis tournament? Sponsorship is almost completely ineffective without commercials to reinforce the message.
Paying for the shows? Well, from the sampling here, people are willing to pay $0.50 per show and not much more. HBO was raised as an example of how paying for a network works out, but then again, what, are there about 20 hours (out of 744) of original programming on HBO per month? Plus, how many TV stations would there be if each one cost $15/month like HBO? Plenty of people may subscribe to a pay channel, but how many of you subscribe to 5, or 10 of them? Last I checked, I don't fix my tuner to a single network, I like shows on at least a dozen different channels. $15 x 12 networks is a lot more than I'm giving up now by watching commercials.
Could it possibly be that the advertising format is actually the optimal way for TV to be funded? If there was a better model, wouldn't it have been tried by now? If sponsorship was so great, why did it get phased out in the 50's? If product placement is so great, why aren't all shows stacked full of products? Why doesn't a network eliminate all commercials and use that as a way to attract audience?
Maybe because any other way to pay for the programming won't work.
So does it make sense to selfishly destroy TV as we know it through technology? Sure, we can do it. But should we? Why destroy TV just because we can?
Ralph
So its obvious that they will go after the big file sharers. If you put one CD on KaZaA, they they won't bother with you. If you have 1,000 songs up there, they'll say 1 song = $2.50, 1000 songs = $2,500, and they'll subpoena you.
The law says:
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000.
That's subject to interpretation though; does a work worth $0.00001 posted on KaZaA fall under this penalty if there are 100,000,000 users of KaZaA? Or do they have to prove that 100,000,000 users actually downloaded it? I'd be willing to bet that since the law says "distribution", that means that $1,000 worth of piracy has to take place. It wouldn't count if the RIAA downloads the same $1 song 1,000 times, they have to document 1,000 different people downloading it.
I'm not in favor of file sharing, I'm just intrigured by this flap.
... too bad for the actors, they'll need to adapt to the times and learn different skills. They're no different than textile workers and computer programmers who get displaced by technology or foreign labor. If they can be recreated by Chinese computer programmers for 1/100th the cost of their salary, then they are going to have to learn to enjoy flipping burgers for a living. Oh yeah, until the cheap burger-flipping machines arrive.
Of course, I'm not a strict globalist, so I defintely feel for them. The lifespan on careers is so short these days that most people will see their careers destroyed at least once in their lifetime, and perhaps 2-3 times. Globalism never considers the human side of the equation, it just pushes us all towards "faster and cheaper" at breakneck paces.
So Japan has more wireless users than the US. Who cares? The US produces more NBA players than Japan -- does that mean that Japan needs to feel ashamed about that, and should spend time on trying to figure out why that is so?
For all I know this article could be a corporate shill -- The Seattle Times is in a joint operating agreement with the Hearst Coroporation, which seems to own a company called Mobility Technologies. Mobility Technologies "product" is a service so that "Travelers can access [Mobility Technologies] data on demand via the Internet or wireless media at www.traffic.com, and they can register for personalized data unique to their route." Hmm, look at this line in the article:
If someone developed an application where a user pressed one phone key to get the traffic report on Highway 520 and another to get conditions on Interstate 90, a decent number of commuters probably would pay 50 cents a month for that service.
Sounds exactly like what Mobility Technologies can offer as a service, doesn't it?
Bottom line -- a lot of companies bet on this so-called "wireless revolution", and lost. I don't know anyone who is experiencing a pain in their life that could be solved by typing things on a phone keypad. So it doesn't matter that this took off in Japan and Europe -- it's a waste of time here, and people know it.
Ralph
Everyone tries to make an analogy as to what Gator is doing based on something that has happened in the past. Problem is, this is a brand new crime, only made possible by technology. There are no laws specifically geared towards this, nor are there laws that should apply (since existing laws were not written with the internet in mind).
The bottom line is that a company (Gator) is making a product that benefits by directly harming another party (web site owners) by either covering up advertising with its own ads, or by placing additional competetive advertising on the site (or as a result of the site showing). Gator does not own the content that it covers, nor does it have any agreement to use this content. Gator could not possibly exist without this content.
Could you picture the Right to Life group placing ads on Planned Parenthood's website showing pictures of aborted fetuses? Could you picture Exxon placing ads on Greenpeace's website? This is what Gator is doing, and its wrong, regardless of if the user agrees to it.
Gator is making money by diverting it from others. It doesn't matter that millions of individual users (not Gator) are doing this; A law should be passed that addresses companies that do damage using millions of users as their army.
Nevermind the BS about the "those people should get another business model". They have a business model. You're f*cking with it if you use Gator. You're f*cking with it if you use an ad blocker. It's as bad as telling a vending machine operator that he should figure out a more secure way of storing his candy, because you can get it for free by tipping it over. Or telling the cable company that they should figure out a new business model, because you can just run a wire to your neighbor's house to get free cable.
Some things are just plain wrong, yet selfish people always figure out a way to rationalize their actions:
"I don't want to see those ads, I didn't authorize them on my browser, so I have the right to install a banner blocker".
No, if you don't want to see those ads, you have the right to not visit the site, period.
-- A frustrated content site owner.
I agree with the sentiment -- I actually purchased the album based on favorable reviews and buzz (which I now suspect were generated by the media conglomeration that probably also owns the record label). I played it once in my car CD player, didn't hear anything even remotely interesting, and it remains today in the back seat of my card.
When I bought Play, I played it once, and immediately played it again because I liked it so much.
It may have something to do with the fact that I don't listen to music radio anymore because they play nearly 100% crap (some local stations are even playing "sponsored" music, which means that the label pays to have the song played!), so that means I haven't been exposed to the songs enough to recognize them. I doubt that any of the Clear Channel stations in my area even are playing tracks from the album (we have no electronic/progrssive stations, just metal, classic rock, metal, r&b pop, metal and country. Oh, did I mention metal?). But whatever it is, I really have no desire to listen to the CD, even though I already own it!
If the music truly isn't as good as Play, wouldn't that be a better explanation as to why sales are down?
Ralph
It's also so bad because the technology (i.e. languages) keep changing rapidly and dramatically. This isn't the case of someone developing a better hammer, this is like someone developing a completely new toolbox full of tools every 2 years. People need 6 months to get completely up to speed on how to use these tools properly, but there's never enough time to actually train someone (i.e. not just a 1 day course) on how to use them.
Why does this surprise you? I have seen diatribes on /. launched against web sites that are failing in the advertising market ("they should get a real business model"), against industries (textiles, callcenters, coders) that are being shifted to developing nations ("those people should update their skills and learn to adapt"), and against record companies who are livid that people are giving their property away ("the music companies should embrace technology, and not try to fight change").
Given the attitudes previously expressed here, why do you think that anyone would say anything other than "those people should either learn to live in a warmer climate or should move"?
From the review:
So, when these high-tech entrepreneurs succeed at solving a problem and creating a solution and getting the product to market, and achieving a liquidity event, they make money for their investors.
And this statement proves it the "bandits" theory. Don't start a business to actually be viable, to employ people, to try and add to the public good. Instead, start a company so that you can get it "to liquidity" and then get out with your money.
If you were actually paying attention during the dot-com era, most of these companies actually made it their sole corporate goal -- to bring the company public. That's the only reason they were started, so the founders could cash out.
Ralph
It's even worse than people think it is. From the article:
After all, 93 percent of all houses are already heated by eco-friendly geothermal energy.
So they are saying that they will take 30-40 years to remove themselves from dependence on oil, even though they are the country with the best starting point to do this (considering that they are situated in geothermal heaven).
Ralph
It's now clear to me now why regular radio sucks, and why I have stopped listening to radio altogether (and hence have stopped buying CD's). Since the record companies are force-feeding a very limited playlist down my throat, and I have no choice in the matter (because the same songs are played on all CC stations), I just turn it off because I don't like it. I don't think that CC or the RIAA realizes that people behave like me though.
Mistake by CC: they play whatever is paid for, regardless of whether it sucks or not.
Mistake by RIAA: they push the most profitible music, regardless of whether it sucks or not.
Since the music I hear sucks, I don't listen to it. I don't buy it. Both CC and RIAA have lost me as a customer, and they don't seem to care.
Bad assumption by RIAA: If someone hears a song, even if it sucks, they will buy it.
Bad assumption by CC: people won't turn you off if you play sucky music because there's no alternative.
Too late. I'm not listening anymore and I'm not buying anymore. I've found other things to occupy my time and better things to buy with my money.
I just don't get it. The RIAA is getting killed by Clear Channel because CC is so big. Yet by requesting huge payments from webcasters they are moving to raise the bar for entry into the broadcasting business, assuring that only companies the size of CC can play in the game.
If the RIAA was smart, they would be using tens of thousands of foot soldiers (i.e. small webcasters) in their war against CC. They would try to get their music played as much as possible instead of trying to control who does play it.
Diversification! Don't rely on the two-ton gorilla, instead rely on 20,000 monkeys, because if you lose a monkey or two, you still can get the job done, but if you lose your gorilla you're screwed.
Its as though the marketing VPs and the accounting VPs at the RIAA don't talk to each other. The marketing VPs should be getting as many people to buy CDs as possible, and the best way is by getting people to hear the music.
The accounting VPs are trying to figure out how to get more money in their coffers, and their best shot at it is to charge people more for playing their music. They haven't figured out that charging people will cause less to play the music, and that will kill CD sales because people won't listen.
They truly deserve this mess if they can't see that.
Ralph
TV shows are largely, if not completely, free for the viewer. If I want them without the ads, I can always buy the boxed DVD when it comes out.
Keep in mind, too, that the DVD box set of Friends is only able to be offered for $50 because the show was paid for by advertising in its original run and in reruns. If that money didn't exist, it would probably cost $500-1000.
Ralph
The advertising world is rapidly approaching the point when they are going to have to realize that TV ads are not >>nearly as effective as they thought they were.
Let's assume you're right. I don't see TV becoming pay-per-show, so that means that TV is essentially finished.
Without advertising sponsorship, most media goes away. TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, internet. None of these media have the capacity to support themselves without advertising, and any attempted alternative that omits advertising is too damaging to the medium that it won't work either in the same way.
How much do you think a monthly magazine with no advertising would cost? Far more than the current $3-5 cover price. Probably more like $15-20. How about a daily newspaper? Maybe $5-10. A first-run TV show? $20-25? I'm making the numbers up, and only loosely basing them on how much other items (books, trade journals mostly) cost when produced in similar non-mass-market volumes. But the point is that if we don't have advertising, we have to be prepared to either give up media or pay a lot more for it.
Ralph
Did you ever think that there's a reason that the page can't be viewed with cookies off? Maybe they are trying to block people with ad-blocking software installed. You shouldn't have copied the article to /., that is wholesale copyright violation -- you're depriving them of revenue that they would have received if thousands of /.'ers went to their site.
Nice.
This means that buying stuff from the US can work out cheaper than buying it from your own country. So, by forcing US companies to tax EU citizens on purchases, this will force consumers to buy from e-commerce sites in the EU.
I don't dispute your point; if US companies don't charge the tax, European companies are definitely at a disadvantage. It also would prevent the EU from raising taxes to, say 50%, because that would cause everyone to start buying from the US.
However, the proposal (as I've read about it) is very one-sided. It neglects to take any account the fact that the merchant has to:
1) Know the tax rates of every EU country, and keep up to date on them.
2) Send money to these countries at some point in time -- when, monthly? Yearly? Maybe not all on the same schedule. And for all I know the EU may specify that I have to pay in Euros, meaning that there could be conversion issues -- for example, if I collect $100 US in VAT, which is 150 Euros, and then by the time I pay it 150 Euros might cost me $150.
I haven't read the proposal, but this seems at least possible. Plus US banks aren't that friendly to those trying to send money out of the country, and frequently charge very high conversion rates.
Finally, it neglects to consider the fact that a government outside of the US is trying to govern US citizens. Now I realize that there is contact between the citizen and a EU citizen, but as a US citizen I have no ability to voice my opinion, through a vote, as to laws that are suddenly applying to me except to not sell to EU customers.
I'm troubled that the EU could "govern" me somehow just because I have some kind of relationship with an EU citizen. This is an important legal concept. Could this extend to other things, like, for example, running a web page that a EU citizen can view? Could I be pulled into German court because I have a page which glorifies Hitler, even though this is permissable in the US? (not that I'd want to make such a page, it's just an example). Could I be pulled into court because I cursed at someone on Usenet?
The law may be fair now, but it could definitely be changed. What if the EU decided to "tax" bytes transmitted to it via the internet? Although it's far-fetched, it's not outside the realm of possibility -- after all, who ever thought that they would try and force US citizens to collect their taxes?
Ralph Slate
I was under the impression that the money I pay to my cable company - Time Warner, which is a Turner enterprise in its own right - is passed along to the cable content providers in licensing fees.
C'mon, let's look at this realistically for a minute.
I pay $50/month for cable. I get over 100 channels. That's $0.50 per channel per month.
Let's say that there are 100 million households in the US that have cable. That's a pot of $5 billion per month, or $50 million per channel per month. Don't forget, the cable companies take a large portion of this for the expense of gathering and retransmitting the signals (cable lines and satellite dishes aren't cheap), but we'll ignore that for now.
Let's say that each channel runs 500 hours of programming per month. That's about 17 hours per day. Of course, it's not all original, but it is available for you to watch.
Now let's do the math. $50 million / 500 = $100,000. That means that for each hour of programming, cable fees can subsidize a maximum of $100,000 (and this number is probably at least 50% less once you take out the costs of the cable companies).
Do you think that it costs only $50,000 to create an episode of Friends? Or any other show out there with the exception of local cable access programs?
Now I know that my numbers aren't really correct because they don't take into consideration that there are reruns on TV 80-90% of the time. If only 20% of TV is original during a month (seems high, but sporting events probably bump this up), that means that the $100,000 per hour is really more like $500,000 per hour. But still, considering how many people go into producing a TV show (actors, writers, producers, editors, etc.), $500,000 per hour of original programming isn't going to buy you much.
Ralph
This is wrong on so many levels. I can watch whatever the fuck I want to of the television programming you send into my house. If I want to watch only 3 minutes of CSPAN perday and nothing else, so be it. If I want to watch only the 5 or 6 interesting shows on the air, so be it. If I want to close my eyes and not watch the ads or find some other way to not watch them, too freakin bad for you! YOU were the one who decided that the volatile business model of selling advertising would bring you stable profits; you are the one taking the risk and putting together the programming together in the first place.
OK, you're technically correct. You certainly have the right to ignore the commercials. However, if you and everyone else choose to ignore the commercials, you can kiss TV goodbye. Devices that automatically skip the commercials, which are definitely legally grey, hasten the demise of TV. If the advertisers know that no one is watching the commercials, they stop advertising. With no ads, it's pretty hard to justify giving your content away for free, especially when it's extremly expensive to produce.
It's not enough to say "they have a lousy business model". That's a cop-out. That's like the CEO of a company, after laying off 10,000 workers, outsourcing the work to China, and terminating pension payments to retirees saying "Too bad, those people should have had a better financial plan". You may not like it, but there is no such thing as a free ride. You get the TV because you have to put up with the ads.
The bottom line is, the companies are allowing you to view their content for free in exchange for the ads (cable fees pay for cable access). You certainly can ignore the ads if you want, but as soon as you buy a device to strip them from the show, you're violating the contract between the TV station and you.
This is, by the way, 100% equivalent to using internet ad blockers. This is the classic ethical problem of the "free rider", where individuals, rationalizing that their actions don't matter, choose to not "pay" for service. Of course, if everyone took that path, the service would cease to exist.
Ralph
Why is it that people who argue for stealing ("sharing") are never the ones who create any works in the first place? Why do they always want to share what others have with themselves?
I am constantly amazed at the selfishness of these people, wrapped up in noblelistic and academic language. "Music should be free, because no one owns an idea". "Books should be free, because otherwise writers are just slaves to corporations".
Just level with us and say what you really mean. "Books, music, and software should be free because I'm a cheap bastard and don't feel like paying for them if I can find a way to steal them and rationalize about it". Use as much rationalization as you need so that you can sleep at night, denying that you are stealing a single penny from anyone.
Illegal copying is theft. It is legally wrong, and is ethically wrong. This is exactly the "free riding" ethical dilema. You can argue that jumping a turnstyle isn't a crime because you don't cause the subway any more expenses by cheating your way on than if you didn't ride. You're hoping that someone else pays the cost so you get your service. It's still wrong.
Ralph
... but they're also ignoring many other facets to this problem, so they're an easy target right now.
Look at the demographics that the RIAA has typically concentrated on -- teenagers. All the new stuff coming out these days is focused on the 12-16 year old crowd. How much money does this crowd realistically have? And how technically savvy are they? And how well-formed are their ethics?
That's the meat of the problem. It's not that everyone is stealing music (because everyone is not). It's that the main demographic of the RIAA is stealing music because they're just a bunch of kids who love music, who don't have any money, who have an abundeance of free time, who know how to do it, and who don't understand that what they're doing is wrong.
Here's where the RIAA needs to pull its head out of its butt. The solution to the problem is fairly easy:
1) Market to a different demographic -- perhaps people who actually have a source of revenue. Older people like music too. Stop making product that no one likes except people who only like to steal it. And change your ways so that some money actually goes to the artists so that the thiefs will actually feel bad that they're depriving their favorite band of money.
2) Develop new music for different demographics, and diversify the portfolios, especially what gets played on the radio. Since all I can hear on the radio is music marketed to 12-16 year olds, I've stopped listening to the radio and subsequently I don't buy many CD's anymore -- not because I don't like music, but because I don't like the crap that I'm being force-fed.
3) Ease up on the internet audio front. It is in the RIAA's best interest to allow webcasting of music because it is essentially FREE ADVERTISING! When song gets played to an audience, this is the only way that the audience will decide whether they like the music. I don't buy music because I've read about it -- I buy it because I've heard it, usually more than once.
Now the RIAA still does have a problem with the teenagers downloading music for free. I think it's within their rights to go after the big guns -- Napster, Kaaza, Morpheus, etc. Their problem is that they are absolutely obsessed with Timmy who e-mails a song to Bobby via IM. They have to realize that they can't stop that, and that a certain amount of that person-to-person trading is OK and probably sells albums.
And everyone else needs to realize that wholesale and widespread music trading is just plain wrong. I don't care about this "it's for the good of society" argument. I don't see music traders volunteering at homeless shelters. Those arguments are convenient excuses to get free music. Get used to the fact that in order to get music to keep, you're going to have to buy it. Put some effort into making that reality fit with the technology, rather than trying to fight it, because there is no way that you're going to be able to always get whatever music you want for free. The economics of that situation are impossible.
Ralph
That assumes that all music is equal. It's not. The RIAA, even though it's a bunch of morons, manages to sign most good artists. Although it's possible to find good stuff not signed to an RIAA-controlled label, you're going to have to weed through a lot of crap to find it.
Ralph