But if I provide no worth or motivation or return to the world, why should I be simply given food, shelter, medical care, etc?
What you're essentially saying is - if you work hard, have foresight, educate yourself, bust your ass, all so you can progress in the world - you can pay for your own shit. If you're lazy, worthless, would rather spread your legs or play xbox all day than do something with your life and can't be motivated to do anything more than sweep the parking lot of your local GoodWill store for a living, and that doesn't pay your way through life, the world somehow OWES you?
Personally, I think you should regain control of your country rather than just laying down and letting things like this happen.
Yeah. Fucking brilliant. Nothing like becoming a target for your government, be labeled a terrorist, communist, athiest, liberal, homosexual or whatever other evil thing that our government is against. Sorry, but in a country where your government has the right and ability to "dissapear" people, I think I'll just keep my fucking mouth shut and accept my dose of soma.
Of course, powerpoint (in whatever derivative) is completely useless. It's kind of like ordering up some skywriting when a simple post-it note on the fridge would get your point across.
I'm a plain old text editor guy. VIM when I'm feeling fancy. However, OpenOffice really is a no-brainer when compared to MSOffice. Especially when you compare the price (free, versus $500). I use it for spreadsheet work all the time and love it.
The only problem I've really had with previous versions (other than a less pleasant interface than it now has) is the somewhat poor format conversion ability. Importing MSOffice files of various types were a pain to an impossibility. So far, I've had no problems importing them with the new beta.
I was talking to someone who operates a small office the other day and he was complaining about the thousands of dollars it was going to cost to equip a handful of users with Office on their machines - when all he needed to do was some spreadsheeting and office memo/document type stuff.
I pointed him at OpenOffice.org and he was blown away. Everyone in the office had it installed, operating and using it productively by the end of the week. It was difficult convincing them, however, that there was no catch. That it was really free. After all, you have people like some random guys on G4TV and radio-based "computer shows" and some websites spouting idiotic bullshit like "If a program is free, you can be sure it has adware, spyware and maybe viruses". Talk about hyperbole.
Or the google system is deliverying a cached page which should not have been cached in the first place. AOL and a few other providers do this all the time to members of my site - and I don't use an IP as the identifier (just a hash-digest).
Of course, most browsers already support compressed (gzip) content and most servers support compressing it. Hell, my site saves about 30% on bandwidth because of it.
Anyway, I don't know what you're all bitching about. I have been using the GWA all day and I've saved 7.1 seconds! I wouldn't trade that for anything! That's 7.1 seconds more for posting to slashdot!
I don't think I even saw thirteen actual *players* in the game, except for near the initial spawn. From what I have heard/seen/read, they have occasional "events" and that's when these people come into play. We're not talking about a non-stop, hourly or even daily thing though.
The idea of having "actors" in this sense is good, but I thing the eventual goal of the first truly great MMORPG will be one in which there are no NPCs and every part is played by a player. Not a hired player - a paying player. A user. But this would require a character and skill system that rewards more than just crafting or killing and would give someone a reason to play the character properly and to excel/progress them in very in-depth ways. Fable did a decent job at this, as far as you can with AI characters, of course.
If you crank all of the settings up, it looks nice. It's absolutely not a GuidlWars or a World of Warcraft, but it keeps up with modern graphics, more or less.
I don't understand why there are some people that are so fascinated with the game, because for three days, every mission was "go escort this new-jack to an evaluation center" and "go kill this guy" and "go kill this other guy and get a data disk" and "escort this guy over here". Then there's lots of looting bodies to get "chunks of code" that you then combine to build "programs" which let you do things, like jump higher, move faster, increase various skills. That's where the crafting comes in.
The weapons are alright. The combat is alright, but a little stiff. That gets boring after awhile. Seriously though, the crafting (which you have to do if you want to increase your skills in anything) gets old, fast.
The map is fairly large and I didn't level up high enough to see all of it. The NPCs are your typical stand around and repeat NPCs. The AI is average. Most frustrating of all, every building looks like every other building. You spend your whole time wandering around town to find a specific building (like all the others), go to a specific floor (like all the others) and find a specific room (like all the others) and kill or find specific people (more or less like all the others).
It's a shame, because the potential is definitely there. It just seems like they figured they could count on Matrix fanboys to love it no matter what it was like and they considered that "enough".
But I've read comments online where people claim it's the greatest game they've ever played. Go figure.
It'll be hard for them to do once they've lost all of their players. I bought the game, played it for three days, deleted it and then spent a half hour on the telephone trying to talk to a human so I could disable my account (you can't cancel your subscription any other way than by calling their technical support lines).
The game is boring. You can play for hours and hours and hours and be lucky if you come across another player. And there's not really much reason to party up with other players. And the crafting system is kind of lame. And the missions are incredibly repetative. Essentially, the game is just DULL. I usually get bored with an MMORPG before long, but I've never become bored with one in only three days before.
I really regret wasting my money buying the game. It's a good idea, poorly implemented. Besides, every single jackass things they have to wear a neo trench-coat. How original.
Because the people who are pushing "intelligent design" aren't pushing "intelligent design". They're calling "intelligent design", what is really "the great lorb jebus and almighty creator". There is no room in their mind for any "intelligent design" other than specifically what arises from the pages of the bible.
It's kind of like how we call it "planned parenthood" even though it's really a place to go to avoid it via abortion and birth control.
Yeah, silly people! You have nothing to fear from religious people dictating what is and is not science and defining the parameters of its exploration! It's not like they've ever done that and abused it in the past or anything. The church has always been a major supporter in being open, forthright and open-minded about scientific explanations of the natural world!
Dude, try reading up a bit on history. The church is to science what the KKK is to racial equality and posess a record just as abhorent.
Further, science is about the investigation of the natural world. It isn't about studying poltergeists or god. Nothing about science absolutely disproves your oh-so-precious creator bullshit. Open up your narrow little mind for a bit and consider that maybe evolution is real - and it was set in motion when the world was first sparked by your oh-so-glorious creator. The fact being that one can be investigated and studied and examined and the other is beyond that and doesn't really have a place outside of "faith".
But you religious nuts have this idea that if evolution is valid, then it somehow disqualifies your entire system of faith. As if your god is so short-sighted and incapable that he couldn't have put evolution into his universe. Science is about natural law. The natural world. You're talking about the supernatural. Something entirely different and unrelated.
Anyway, the church needs to stay the fuck out of science. They did enough damage in the first 1900+ years to hold back science, with-hold scientific information and imprison, threaten or kill scientists.
One is science and the other is religion. That's like saying that santa clause and the easter bunny should be discussed in science classes. Why? It has nothing to do with science. It's not relevant.
Evolution is the most likely answer currently proposed by our combined knowledged, but sure it could be incorrect. But the fact of the matter is that evolution is at least grounded in the scientific process. There are ways to investigate, theorize, study and quantify it. Creationism (ie, religion, really since that's the group pushing such things) is about a lack of such things. It's about "faith" and science is directly opposite. In fact, stoutly religious people would consider thorough investigation of a "creator" to be blasphemy, because it circumvents simple "faith" that there is a creator.
So you can use your faith to believe in the creator. Invest in that at church on Sundays. But leave me my fucking science to investigate the rest.
Yeah, I want the same group that says "god hates fags", "kill abortion doctors" and moves child raping priests around like a shell-game to be the ones to define "science".
I'm frustrated with how things are in this country - like a lot of other people - but I also don't like the "give everyone a decent wage to meet their needs" method, either.
I mean, if you're not adaptable, quick to learn, hard-working and so forth - why *should* you be granted a "living wage" or "enough to meet your NEEDS"? What gives you the right to demand from an employer (or a government) enough to meet your needs if you provide no worth to society?
I don't see that as a dog-eat-dog point of view. I just see it as a... well... a fair trade. If you provide something useful to someone, they pay you. The more useful and unique the service you provide, the more they pay you. Jobs, valuable as they are in this market, should be reserved for those who need, want and excel at them - not given out to every incompitant just because they "deserve a living wage too", regardless of skill.
If you do that, then how is it any different than giving jobs out to slave labor in china where they can compete for lower wages?
You are typically paid what the market determines you are worth. If the market is flooded with people who do what you do, you are not worth as much - so why should a company have to pay you as much?
This gets to me as much as people who demand that minimum wage be increased, because "A family of four can't live on minimum wage". Well, who the hell lives on minimum wage? Very few people work full time and make minimum wage after more than a month or two. It's just a silly argument.
So by your logic, I should be fine driving a Saab, if a Saab is good enough for *you*. And I should be fine living in a dinky little studio apartment, because a dinky studio apartment is good enough for *you*. And I shouldn't bother with 5.1 Surround Sound, because two-speaker stereo is good enough for *you*. And basic cable should be find for me, because *you* have no need for expanded cable? And I should be fine on dial-up, because it's good enough for *you*?
As you said yourself "Sure, I didn't get the full effects of the games...".
Yeah, well - some of us WANT the full effects of the games. Just because a game can be played with all of the effects turned down and running at 600x800 doesn't mean everyone *wants* to. And if some jackass with a backwards cap and a fake gold chain around his neck can spend thousands of dollars suping up his retarded car, which I have no interest in, what's wrong with me spending money on the things I *am* interested in? Especially considering the depreciation rate of a vehical.
Anyway, I won't ever spend $500 on another video card. I did that once and it was fine. But I bought that specifically for a specific game that I was impatient for and wanted to play with great effects urgently. In the future, I probably wouldn't spend more than $300 on a videocard (and that's about as much as I've ever spent except for that one incident).
The problem is that with most hardware, it runs beautifully if you buy at the price point. All components can be purchased that will be powerful enough to run every modern game (at the time you're buying the parts) in absolute full-glory... EXCEPT the videocard. If you buy your videocard at the price-break-point, it will usually NOT run the latest games in their absolute fullest glory. And that is where the difference lays. That's why some people will spend more on a video card than they would on the motherboard, CPU, RAM, sound card, CD drive and chassis combined.
Do you have children? Or a wife? If not, you surely know people that do. How do you justify the expense of caring for them and paying all their bills and things that they need? That's mighty expensive. More expensive in a given week than a simple videocard.
Oh, I see - you can justify it because what YOU spend YOUR money on is far more significant and important than what anyone ELSE spends THEIR money on. Kind of like how people with a spouse and/or children feel that they deserve tax credits and rebates because those evil single people who don't choose to breed a litter and "play house" are able to spend their hard earned money on things they enjoy - and they should have to pay through the nose for your jealousy?
Seriously, $500 for a card is nothing for some people. I spent $500 on a card the year before HL2 came out (because it was slotted to come out that year, until it was rescheduled a week AFTER the due date). I probably wouldn't spend that on a card again, but it was no big deal. And no, I'm not uber rich or anything. I just don't have any debt or insanely expensive responsibilities, by choice.
How is providing "content" via a forum any different than providing "content" via ebay auctions? Users provide the "content" in the forum of auctions/items, but people still payfor the site. Why is that? Oh, right - because there is more to it than simply "content". There's the whole infrastructure to think of.
Not to mention, I think spending copious quantities of your time to build and keep a site running may often deserve some return, regardless of who provides the content.
You pay a monthly fee for telephone service, even though YOU provide the content of the conversations. Get over it. There is more involved than simply "content". This is like suggesting that nobody should ever charge money for a book, because it's just words on a piece of paper... when there's really a lot that goes on behind the scenes in editing, producting, manufacturing, promoting and distributing that book.
Sure, maybe YOU provide the CONTENT as a user to a site, but someone has to pay for all of time and expense that goes into maintaining the service and community that you're able to share your content *in*.
If I'm paying a couple hundred bucks a month for bandwidth and hosting, not to mention a few thousand bucks for the hardware and countless (hundreds or thousands, easily) of hours of my time to build and maintain a site where a community "provides content", why shouldn't I feel free to charge? It sounds like what people want is a place that is FREE TO THEM, whether or not it's free to the person providing the venue to begin with. That, in my opinion, is the epitomy of greed.
That's the point. If people can find a free version of something that is just as popular and useful as the pay version, they'll probably go for the free version. So if there is someone willing to pay out of their pocket to fund everything and spend countless hours and days of their life building, maintaining and supporting such a service for free, more power to them.
But if nobody is willing to do that, people find it valuable enough to pay for it - then what's wrong with that? People have the option to go elsewhere. People have the option to provide a competing service. People have the option of providing the service for free. No big deal.
As far as I can tell, this company provides the bandwidth. The hardware. The administrative people. They have every right to attempt to find compensation for their investments.
Whether or not they're "new services" or "old services that used to be free" is beside the point. Sometimes you can afford to provide things for free in the beginning. However, as things grow, your invested time and expenses increase to the point that they may not be something you can cover on your own. That doesn't sound like the case here, but they still have every right to make a buck off a service they provide.
Slashdot Mirror
But if I provide no worth or motivation or return to the world, why should I be simply given food, shelter, medical care, etc?
What you're essentially saying is - if you work hard, have foresight, educate yourself, bust your ass, all so you can progress in the world - you can pay for your own shit. If you're lazy, worthless, would rather spread your legs or play xbox all day than do something with your life and can't be motivated to do anything more than sweep the parking lot of your local GoodWill store for a living, and that doesn't pay your way through life, the world somehow OWES you?
Screw that.
and only people can have rights.
And corporations.
But of course, corporations are legally people, so . . .
Personally, I think you should regain control of your country rather than just laying down and letting things like this happen.
Yeah. Fucking brilliant. Nothing like becoming a target for your government, be labeled a terrorist, communist, athiest, liberal, homosexual or whatever other evil thing that our government is against. Sorry, but in a country where your government has the right and ability to "dissapear" people, I think I'll just keep my fucking mouth shut and accept my dose of soma.
Then there's the whole wearing of polyfibers thing. Oh NOES WE ALL FUCKED, WILLIS!
*yawn*
Religious crazies are fun.
Of course, powerpoint (in whatever derivative) is completely useless. It's kind of like ordering up some skywriting when a simple post-it note on the fridge would get your point across.
I'm a plain old text editor guy. VIM when I'm feeling fancy. However, OpenOffice really is a no-brainer when compared to MSOffice. Especially when you compare the price (free, versus $500). I use it for spreadsheet work all the time and love it.
The only problem I've really had with previous versions (other than a less pleasant interface than it now has) is the somewhat poor format conversion ability. Importing MSOffice files of various types were a pain to an impossibility. So far, I've had no problems importing them with the new beta.
I was talking to someone who operates a small office the other day and he was complaining about the thousands of dollars it was going to cost to equip a handful of users with Office on their machines - when all he needed to do was some spreadsheeting and office memo/document type stuff.
I pointed him at OpenOffice.org and he was blown away. Everyone in the office had it installed, operating and using it productively by the end of the week. It was difficult convincing them, however, that there was no catch. That it was really free. After all, you have people like some random guys on G4TV and radio-based "computer shows" and some websites spouting idiotic bullshit like "If a program is free, you can be sure it has adware, spyware and maybe viruses". Talk about hyperbole.
3.7 minutes? Man, I could have sex a dozen times with that kind of banked time!
Of course, BETA shouldn't be detrimental to websites or the net in such a way. Shouldn't be released to the public until it's a bit more refined.
Or the google system is deliverying a cached page which should not have been cached in the first place. AOL and a few other providers do this all the time to members of my site - and I don't use an IP as the identifier (just a hash-digest).
Of course, most browsers already support compressed (gzip) content and most servers support compressing it. Hell, my site saves about 30% on bandwidth because of it.
Anyway, I don't know what you're all bitching about. I have been using the GWA all day and I've saved 7.1 seconds! I wouldn't trade that for anything! That's 7.1 seconds more for posting to slashdot!
I don't think I even saw thirteen actual *players* in the game, except for near the initial spawn. From what I have heard/seen/read, they have occasional "events" and that's when these people come into play. We're not talking about a non-stop, hourly or even daily thing though.
The idea of having "actors" in this sense is good, but I thing the eventual goal of the first truly great MMORPG will be one in which there are no NPCs and every part is played by a player. Not a hired player - a paying player. A user. But this would require a character and skill system that rewards more than just crafting or killing and would give someone a reason to play the character properly and to excel/progress them in very in-depth ways. Fable did a decent job at this, as far as you can with AI characters, of course.
If you crank all of the settings up, it looks nice. It's absolutely not a GuidlWars or a World of Warcraft, but it keeps up with modern graphics, more or less.
I don't understand why there are some people that are so fascinated with the game, because for three days, every mission was "go escort this new-jack to an evaluation center" and "go kill this guy" and "go kill this other guy and get a data disk" and "escort this guy over here". Then there's lots of looting bodies to get "chunks of code" that you then combine to build "programs" which let you do things, like jump higher, move faster, increase various skills. That's where the crafting comes in.
The weapons are alright. The combat is alright, but a little stiff. That gets boring after awhile. Seriously though, the crafting (which you have to do if you want to increase your skills in anything) gets old, fast.
The map is fairly large and I didn't level up high enough to see all of it. The NPCs are your typical stand around and repeat NPCs. The AI is average. Most frustrating of all, every building looks like every other building. You spend your whole time wandering around town to find a specific building (like all the others), go to a specific floor (like all the others) and find a specific room (like all the others) and kill or find specific people (more or less like all the others).
It's a shame, because the potential is definitely there. It just seems like they figured they could count on Matrix fanboys to love it no matter what it was like and they considered that "enough".
But I've read comments online where people claim it's the greatest game they've ever played. Go figure.
It'll be hard for them to do once they've lost all of their players. I bought the game, played it for three days, deleted it and then spent a half hour on the telephone trying to talk to a human so I could disable my account (you can't cancel your subscription any other way than by calling their technical support lines).
The game is boring. You can play for hours and hours and hours and be lucky if you come across another player. And there's not really much reason to party up with other players. And the crafting system is kind of lame. And the missions are incredibly repetative. Essentially, the game is just DULL. I usually get bored with an MMORPG before long, but I've never become bored with one in only three days before.
I really regret wasting my money buying the game. It's a good idea, poorly implemented. Besides, every single jackass things they have to wear a neo trench-coat. How original.
Because the people who are pushing "intelligent design" aren't pushing "intelligent design". They're calling "intelligent design", what is really "the great lorb jebus and almighty creator". There is no room in their mind for any "intelligent design" other than specifically what arises from the pages of the bible.
It's kind of like how we call it "planned parenthood" even though it's really a place to go to avoid it via abortion and birth control.
Fuck off. You apparently know nothing about the history and role of the church in your scientific progress in europe. Ever heard of the dark ages?
Yeah, silly people! You have nothing to fear from religious people dictating what is and is not science and defining the parameters of its exploration! It's not like they've ever done that and abused it in the past or anything. The church has always been a major supporter in being open, forthright and open-minded about scientific explanations of the natural world!
Dude, try reading up a bit on history. The church is to science what the KKK is to racial equality and posess a record just as abhorent.
Further, science is about the investigation of the natural world. It isn't about studying poltergeists or god. Nothing about science absolutely disproves your oh-so-precious creator bullshit. Open up your narrow little mind for a bit and consider that maybe evolution is real - and it was set in motion when the world was first sparked by your oh-so-glorious creator. The fact being that one can be investigated and studied and examined and the other is beyond that and doesn't really have a place outside of "faith".
But you religious nuts have this idea that if evolution is valid, then it somehow disqualifies your entire system of faith. As if your god is so short-sighted and incapable that he couldn't have put evolution into his universe. Science is about natural law. The natural world. You're talking about the supernatural. Something entirely different and unrelated.
Anyway, the church needs to stay the fuck out of science. They did enough damage in the first 1900+ years to hold back science, with-hold scientific information and imprison, threaten or kill scientists.
Yes, there is something wrong with "both sides".
One is science and the other is religion. That's like saying that santa clause and the easter bunny should be discussed in science classes. Why? It has nothing to do with science. It's not relevant.
Evolution is the most likely answer currently proposed by our combined knowledged, but sure it could be incorrect. But the fact of the matter is that evolution is at least grounded in the scientific process. There are ways to investigate, theorize, study and quantify it. Creationism (ie, religion, really since that's the group pushing such things) is about a lack of such things. It's about "faith" and science is directly opposite. In fact, stoutly religious people would consider thorough investigation of a "creator" to be blasphemy, because it circumvents simple "faith" that there is a creator.
So you can use your faith to believe in the creator. Invest in that at church on Sundays. But leave me my fucking science to investigate the rest.
Yeah, I want the same group that says "god hates fags", "kill abortion doctors" and moves child raping priests around like a shell-game to be the ones to define "science".
I'm frustrated with how things are in this country - like a lot of other people - but I also don't like the "give everyone a decent wage to meet their needs" method, either.
I mean, if you're not adaptable, quick to learn, hard-working and so forth - why *should* you be granted a "living wage" or "enough to meet your NEEDS"? What gives you the right to demand from an employer (or a government) enough to meet your needs if you provide no worth to society?
I don't see that as a dog-eat-dog point of view. I just see it as a... well... a fair trade. If you provide something useful to someone, they pay you. The more useful and unique the service you provide, the more they pay you. Jobs, valuable as they are in this market, should be reserved for those who need, want and excel at them - not given out to every incompitant just because they "deserve a living wage too", regardless of skill.
If you do that, then how is it any different than giving jobs out to slave labor in china where they can compete for lower wages?
And what, exactly, defines a "living wage"?
You are typically paid what the market determines you are worth. If the market is flooded with people who do what you do, you are not worth as much - so why should a company have to pay you as much?
This gets to me as much as people who demand that minimum wage be increased, because "A family of four can't live on minimum wage". Well, who the hell lives on minimum wage? Very few people work full time and make minimum wage after more than a month or two. It's just a silly argument.
Chinese population: 1,300,000,000 (57 million is about 4%)
American population: 293,000,000 (54 million is about 20%)
20% versus 4% - please explain how China is overtaking America?
So by your logic, I should be fine driving a Saab, if a Saab is good enough for *you*. And I should be fine living in a dinky little studio apartment, because a dinky studio apartment is good enough for *you*. And I shouldn't bother with 5.1 Surround Sound, because two-speaker stereo is good enough for *you*. And basic cable should be find for me, because *you* have no need for expanded cable? And I should be fine on dial-up, because it's good enough for *you*?
As you said yourself "Sure, I didn't get the full effects of the games...".
Yeah, well - some of us WANT the full effects of the games. Just because a game can be played with all of the effects turned down and running at 600x800 doesn't mean everyone *wants* to. And if some jackass with a backwards cap and a fake gold chain around his neck can spend thousands of dollars suping up his retarded car, which I have no interest in, what's wrong with me spending money on the things I *am* interested in? Especially considering the depreciation rate of a vehical.
Anyway, I won't ever spend $500 on another video card. I did that once and it was fine. But I bought that specifically for a specific game that I was impatient for and wanted to play with great effects urgently. In the future, I probably wouldn't spend more than $300 on a videocard (and that's about as much as I've ever spent except for that one incident).
The problem is that with most hardware, it runs beautifully if you buy at the price point. All components can be purchased that will be powerful enough to run every modern game (at the time you're buying the parts) in absolute full-glory... EXCEPT the videocard. If you buy your videocard at the price-break-point, it will usually NOT run the latest games in their absolute fullest glory. And that is where the difference lays. That's why some people will spend more on a video card than they would on the motherboard, CPU, RAM, sound card, CD drive and chassis combined.
What costs are there to justify?
Do you have children? Or a wife? If not, you surely know people that do. How do you justify the expense of caring for them and paying all their bills and things that they need? That's mighty expensive. More expensive in a given week than a simple videocard.
Oh, I see - you can justify it because what YOU spend YOUR money on is far more significant and important than what anyone ELSE spends THEIR money on. Kind of like how people with a spouse and/or children feel that they deserve tax credits and rebates because those evil single people who don't choose to breed a litter and "play house" are able to spend their hard earned money on things they enjoy - and they should have to pay through the nose for your jealousy?
Seriously, $500 for a card is nothing for some people. I spent $500 on a card the year before HL2 came out (because it was slotted to come out that year, until it was rescheduled a week AFTER the due date). I probably wouldn't spend that on a card again, but it was no big deal. And no, I'm not uber rich or anything. I just don't have any debt or insanely expensive responsibilities, by choice.
How is providing "content" via a forum any different than providing "content" via ebay auctions? Users provide the "content" in the forum of auctions/items, but people still payfor the site. Why is that? Oh, right - because there is more to it than simply "content". There's the whole infrastructure to think of.
Not to mention, I think spending copious quantities of your time to build and keep a site running may often deserve some return, regardless of who provides the content.
You pay a monthly fee for telephone service, even though YOU provide the content of the conversations. Get over it. There is more involved than simply "content". This is like suggesting that nobody should ever charge money for a book, because it's just words on a piece of paper... when there's really a lot that goes on behind the scenes in editing, producting, manufacturing, promoting and distributing that book.
Sure, maybe YOU provide the CONTENT as a user to a site, but someone has to pay for all of time and expense that goes into maintaining the service and community that you're able to share your content *in*.
If I'm paying a couple hundred bucks a month for bandwidth and hosting, not to mention a few thousand bucks for the hardware and countless (hundreds or thousands, easily) of hours of my time to build and maintain a site where a community "provides content", why shouldn't I feel free to charge? It sounds like what people want is a place that is FREE TO THEM, whether or not it's free to the person providing the venue to begin with. That, in my opinion, is the epitomy of greed.
That's the point. If people can find a free version of something that is just as popular and useful as the pay version, they'll probably go for the free version. So if there is someone willing to pay out of their pocket to fund everything and spend countless hours and days of their life building, maintaining and supporting such a service for free, more power to them.
But if nobody is willing to do that, people find it valuable enough to pay for it - then what's wrong with that? People have the option to go elsewhere. People have the option to provide a competing service. People have the option of providing the service for free. No big deal.
As far as I can tell, this company provides the bandwidth. The hardware. The administrative people. They have every right to attempt to find compensation for their investments.
Whether or not they're "new services" or "old services that used to be free" is beside the point. Sometimes you can afford to provide things for free in the beginning. However, as things grow, your invested time and expenses increase to the point that they may not be something you can cover on your own. That doesn't sound like the case here, but they still have every right to make a buck off a service they provide.