End of the Free Internet 581
efedora writes: "The End of Free keeps a list of the various transitions to paid services from free net sites. The list is getting longer. When I think of an individual site that's really worthwhile I say to myself, "Sure, that site is worth $4.95 a month". The problem is there are going to be lots of sites at $$$ a month and it sure adds up." Of course even Slashdot is planning on rolling out subscriptions-for-no-banner-ads sometime soon, so I suppose we're not entirely immune to the subscription bug either.
subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:4, Insightful)
Get in touch with reality. Jesus.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:2)
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't -- and, as a result, I haven't seen a banner in ages. All I get is the outline of the rectangle where the ad should appear.
Believe me -- when you're still using a dial-up connection, turning off the graphics makes all the difference in the world as far as surfing speed goes.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:5, Funny)
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, I'm not from the USA. Thanks to a very effective market-monopoly by our largest Telco who has exclusive rights to the copper, there are less than 25,000 DSL subscribers in the whole of New Zealand.
And then, even if you are lucky enough to live in an area where DSL is available, you face the prospect of paying by the megabyte [telecom.co.nz] for data sent/received (including traffic generated by DOS attacks, spam etc).
But wait -- it gets worse!
This large telco also appears to have placed severe throttling on P2P traffic such that some people are reporting speeds as low as 1KB/S when using the cheapest DSL accounts.
You guys in the USA should think yourselves lucky!
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:2, Interesting)
Every now and then I use someone else's computer and I just can't believe how awful the web has gotten. How can anyone stand it?
This website supposedly caters to geeks--that is, people who supposedly can control what comes in through their browsers.
How is this supposed to make money again?
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem solved.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:5, Informative)
and put
<script>
window.close()
</script>
in the error page associated with 127.0.0.1
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:3, Interesting)
This works great for me.
Of course, I still see the slashdot ads, because they're served from the same server as the other images, but most sites use separate ad servers.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think nobody will pay, then why do you care? You can still browse Slashdot to your heart's content, with banner ads, just like now. If nobody pays, things continue as they are, and nobody loses by this additional feature being available to anyone who might want it.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:3, Interesting)
when
next they start asking fees to watch
let's hope it stays like this. a further step might be that some marketeer decides that the "paysite" is not bringing in enough money because the service hardly differs. in this (worst case) scenario,
let's hope this never happens and that i'm just too paranoid. still, i think a site that often stands for freedom and openness, shouldn't discriminate users on financial criteria. but that's just IMHO
No shit. (Score:2)
Though maybe this will make
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:5, Informative)
No shit. For good laughs, cut-and-paste the text of a news article into a text editor, then save the HTML and compare the difference.
I believe the current record for lowest S/N ratio (ignoring tomshardware.com's practice of putting one sentence per page ;-) for a mainstream news site is http://www.theglobeandmail.com [theglobeandmail.com].
Ad-laden CNN serves 22,700 bytes of HTML for a 1400-byte story.
The Globe and Mail delivers a staggering 90,587 bytes of HTML for a 3082-byte story.
Those numbers are for surfers who surf with images off, by the way. The bloat is Javashit, banners, towers, stock quotes, polls, and navigation to every section of the newspaper. I don't even want to think about what it'd be like with graphics on.
And these jerkwads wonder why their bandwidth bills are so high.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe that is something that
RonB
Slashdot Poll I'd like to see (Score:3, Funny)
Would you pay for
Yes, I am addicted
Yes, I feel we should support the developers
Yes, Get rid of the commercializism
Maybe
No, information should be free
No, I don't pay for anything on the net
No, I'm paranoid about giving my credit card to CowboyNeal
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:2, Funny)
Don't pay, and keep ignoring the banner ads
Pay, and I don't have to ignore the banner ads.
we are becoming immune to baner ads, therefore thsi business model will fail.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:2)
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:5, Interesting)
Money Slashdot gets from readers under current system: $0
Money Slashdot gets from readers under proposed system: $0 (if, according to you, not a single person pays)
How is this a stupid idea?
*It does not cost Slashdot anything, and might bring in money.*
I would probably pay even though I currently block about 98% of the banners that Slashdot shows.
Why?
Because I get a lot out of Slashdot. I am willing to pay, or even donate, to a cause/service that is offered for free that I get something out of. I have disposable income, like most of Slashdot, and I am willing to give some of that up for things that I like (like Slashdot)
I have contributed monetarily to FSF, EFF, and CPSR, as well as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.
I am not under the impression that I deserve everything for free, nor that these services can rely on others for support. I realize that Slashdot does have income from advertisements now, but I am willing to give up a few dollars to make sure that Slashdot continues even if this dries up (have you checked how much less people are paying for ads these days?)
I bought a Slashdot T-shirt from CopyLeft pre-Slashdot buyout in part to support Slashdot.
I think you are the one that needs to get in touch with reality.
ThinkGeek (Score:4, Interesting)
([x] feet up, in freezing temperatures with wind... and rain. Hey, can I get a light? Sure can. ThinkGeek Delta Shockproof lighters!)
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:2)
Slashdot offering no-banner-ad subscriptions? I'd say try it -- but for all of OSDN.
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you'd be insane to use this for anything important... but yes, they have [slashdot.org].
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Popup
2. Popunder
3. Resize to full screen and hide all buttons
4. Spawn even more ads
5. Move around the screen so I can't click the close button
6. Eat up 90% of my system resourses and often crashing windows by using some shitty flash/java advertisement
7. Attempt to autoinstall spyware repeatedly
8. Play sound at the loudest posible volume and keep the distortion just low enough to where you can understand what is being said.
9. Follow my mouse around
10. Reset my homepage/searchpage
11. Flash bright, highcontrast colors and jitters.
Am I forgetting anything?
Re:subscriptions for non-banner-ads (Score:4, Insightful)
But that swings both ways. Site admins have been expecting to make a profit (in the long term) from something that people are simply not willing to pay for. It sucks, but it's simple economics and crying about it won't change the fact.
and thats a culture that's about to change.
The change will not be that people will suddenly pay for all the sites that used to be free. The change will be that all the free sites that lose money will disappear.
I'm still convinced that the only solution to the "free site" problem is not on the profit end of the equation, but rather on the cost end. When bandwidth is of negligible cost (and it has to get there eventually, I'm very surprised it's taking so long) then sites will be able to stay afloat on the lower profit margins.
Don't like to pay? Set up your own site. (Score:3, Informative)
If you remember a few years ago there were lots of small free sites that eventually got ate by the big portal sites or just gave up as they couldn't compete for users attention with so many big name companies giving away the same stuff. Those forces are disappearing so now is your chance to have your own little slice of the Net again.
On my projects page you can see that I'm beginning to work on providing easy to use plug-n-play style components to build sites from. If anyone cares to help please do. So far I've used this exact code in several commercial sites and it's working fine so I have no reason to think it won't work for free sites. You don't need to make a profit from a site if it's not costing you a lot of money.
If I were to pay for slashdot, (Score:4, Insightful)
(A) Quality Journalism. Not Katz. Not Taco spelling things wrong or Hemos missing commas.
(B) Moderation issues fixed. See "The Post."
That is all.
Re:If I were to pay for slashdot, (Score:2, Funny)
Why do all the slashdot heads use these lame end lines? End Communication? That is all?
I want a filter if I'm going to pay for
Re:If I were to pay for slashdot, (Score:4, Interesting)
* The ability to vote on articles in the queue, a la Kuro5hin, instead of being at the mercy of the editor's whims as the non-subscribers are.
* Extra moderation points
* The ability to turn off ads (as is already planned), and maybe be optional for a discount on having one's own ad displayed on Slashdot
* Priority for articles that are submitted. That is, news items submitted by subscribers will be considered first.
* Some damn spell-checking on things that _are_ posted.
Just my 2 cents
Slashdot has banner ads? (Score:3, Funny)
Paying for the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with that kind of model is a lot like the problem with Slashdot moderator points--you only have so many go around. If you spent $5/month on slashdot, would you have the inclination to spend another $5 for cnn.com or another $5 for espn.com?
Re:Paying for the internet (Score:5, Interesting)
I would pay $5.00 per month for google.
Anybody else can go screw themselves. Charge me $5.00 and you'll force me to try out your competition to see if I like them as much or better.
Re:Paying for the internet (Score:3, Funny)
So would I
Re:Paying for the internet (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot subscription (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot subscription (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot subscription (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot subscription (Score:2)
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones -- bad spelling in comments is something that annoys me.
Fact checking? Slashdot? I think you've taken a wrong turn somewhere, this is just a linkfest gone wrong...
Ponzi Subscription Program (PSP) (Score:2)
A happy troll is a paying troll. Or is that a toll?
Eventual (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I'll bet money that after people begin feeling comfortable with paying for content, the ads will come back. It's just the nature of the beast.
Re:Eventual (Score:3, Interesting)
I would much rather see an affiliate program that lets me pick 4 or 5 websites on my own for the $5 a month and dynamincally change them as my tastes change. Lets say I get sick of slashdot in the middle of the month, then they get a prorated check and I can subscribe to something else.
Re:Eventual (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, why this doesn't have to be like cable.
It would really be an inexpensive business to get into, and would only require a great deal of time and editorial restraint.
Here is an example.
You find 100 websites, each with high quality content that would be of interest to the group of people you're targeting.
You build a subscription base. Look for a target audience that would really be interested in the sites you're contracted with.
You charge $3.50 a month (something that's not too unreasonable). You take $.50 a month from that for your self. Your subscription base is 10,000 people, giving you $5,000 monthly operating revenue. Allot yourself $2,000 for bandwidth/financial services, and you have a nice bit of income.
You employ some sort of counter system on each of your member sites that reports in real time to your server. The remaining $30,000 in fees are divided on a percentage bases among those websites. Granted, the smaller (less visited sites) would receive a small revenue, it's still more then they likely get now.
There are a few issues with this that would have to be worked out, including marketing, preventing cheating with member sites.. but it's something that could work (and be profitable) even on a small scale.
The advantage of this model is that it allows smaller websites to make a profit, it encourages and keeps alive independent content of value, it helps filter out a lot of the noise (and there is a lot of it on the Internet), and most importantly allows editorial decisions to be made with an emphasis on pleasing the end user, instead of advertisers.
If there is anyone out there with a bit of startup capital that would actually be interested in hearing the details, I wouldn't mind chatting via e-mail. pathighgate@hotmail.com
Re:Eventual (Score:2)
Re:Eventual (Score:2)
-- Shamus
Bleah!
Re:Eventual (Score:4, Interesting)
The other end of the spectrum are the new sites launching with a pay element from day one. These are of high value to the user, offering information on stock prices, access to a valuable network, or some other information. They will often replace a telephone or paper based service that was charged at a premium previously.
The pay does model work, even paying thousands a year, if the content is of genuine value to the consumer and hasn't been freely available in the past.
Paying to remove banner ads is simply not going to make anyone money - why? - I can better spend the money upgrading to DSL or buying coffee. I don't get anything new.
Paying to 'support' a site could work. But only if a large enough minority actually put in some money. For something like a cancer patient support site this will work, for
And as another poster points out - Google style ads are the way to go. When I read a mac story on
yep + unasked advice (Score:3, Interesting)
One key is to charge people as indirectly as possible. Some other ideas:
pay for more bandwidth
micro ads (mentioned below)
personalization: xxx@slashdot.org email, rdf headlines sent to your pda.
pay for more functionality: message your friends. A more customizable moderation system: ignore the mods of your foes/ ignore "offtopic" mods, etc.
subtract free functionality but only for the hardcore users. I.e. best set up is if the average user didn't notice a big difference (no huge page filling iframes). Say the typical user could only post 15 comments a month. Then you'd have to pay {small amount} for unlimited postings. Note that by logging in as AC this still lets the po' folk post, but it's targetted at the hard core guys who are more likely to pay.
How these changes are done is often as important as what the changes are:
I think this would be a good "Ask Slashdot" topic. Seriously. Why not lay out the finances, what's needed and how soon, and then let's bandy about some ways to make a subscription site like this work. Why do it behind closed doors? You might find some pretty clever ideas from the user base. Aslo, I for one, would have great respect for any company that honestly dealt with its users and included them in the decision making process. Or at least made some gestures in this direction. It would bring you so much goodwill. And we know you gotta pay the bills (little taquitos might loom on horizon. Somebody has to feed Katz.). But instead of making us feel like we are being led by the nose to a more and more annoying site until we pay (i.e. the Salon approach) -- be upfront about what's needed and we'll help you make slashdot work.
Pay for Advertising (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. It already happens in other environments.
My wife occasionally manages to drag me out to a movie (or I go otherwise willingly on the rare occasion when there's one that seems worth going to). I tend to have her pay for the tickets to avoid the sinking feeling as the majority of a $20 bill disappears in to the vortex that is the box office (and we haven't even come near to the snack bar yet).
But what the heck. I eventually get a comfortable stadium-style seat in a nice theatre with a good screen and decent sound. I'm all set to watch the movie. And, of course, I might get a chance to see the trialer of another movie I'm looking forward to. Or I might have to suffer a string of Hollywood drivel and note what I may (or most likely) not rent if I'm really hard pressed for a movie at home. But what do I get?
20 minutes of commercials. Not movie trailers. Commercials. For soda. Cars. Washing detergent. You'd almost think I'm home watching television. Except I paid a premium price for the privilege.
I'm Fine With Subscriptions (Score:3, Interesting)
- You can keep Katz. I don't hate the guy as much as most people around here. He's not a moron, and he writes interesting articles. BUT, please ask Robert Cringely to write an article or two every month. I'm not sure if this would violate his contract with PBS, but he would be a nice addition to the Slashdot staff (perhaps he could even write an open-source/free software slanted column in addition to his PBS gig).
- No banner ads for subscribers, of course.
- Some "free" item every six or twelve months, perhaps. I'm talking small here, like a travel coffee mug of a relatively aesthetically-pleasing t-shirt with a slash and a dot on it.
- Ability for more customization than non-paying users. I'm thinking of some nifty themes, perhaps (everyone loves the apple./..org gfx, let's get some more good looking stuff). Also, subscribers should be able to moderate more often. I probably earn at least five karma points a day on my two accounts but haven't been able to moderate for MONTHS.
- Perhaps a general forum with a few different categories where subscribers can post questions, etc. I'm imagining an "Off-Topic" room, a "General hardware" room, and a "Software" room right now. Of course, this would all be OSS/FS-related chit chat for the most part (except for silly OT posts).
Eric Krout
Some day... (Score:4, Funny)
Ads are everywhere. (Score:2, Interesting)
My 0.02$ anyways.
Keep the net free and make banners less intrusive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Keep the net free and make banners less intrusi (Score:3, Interesting)
This is unfortunate, and i think most major providers must attempt to block such nonsense.
I do not mind unobtrusive ads, like on google, that actually flow along with your query, and sometimes help find extra information!
I think barrier will be broken once ads will offer something to user in exchange for paying attention to it. Have you seen shoot, zap smash the monkey ads?(duh!) Well that ad provides entertainment for web user that surfs very rigid content.
Ad that offers something to the user, may catch attention of one , pass the threshold of filtering and annoyance ad dismissal, may bring magnitude large set of audience than otherwise large square pop up ads about sun and oracle bits they are willing to sell for a small fortune.
Ad must say, here is something free, that you might need, in return of taking it(enteratinment, info), learn about our product and maybe have a deal.
As for websites turning to subscription models, they have clearly have not grasped what the net, is. Perhaps they will capture some people who transalete from newspaper world into webworld, but those are not the futre of the net.
New media distribution models will be coming to lower the cost of distribution, such as multicast(I assume with IPv6, cuz one for IPv4 is dead). Once that is everywhere, one may be able to cast from garage to everyone in the world, and take exactly 1 times bandwiths, as unicasting to a buddy. Leveraging smart ways of technology is what internet is all about. Its about being able to take new stuff, maybe make your own and do one man show that will make drone megacorporations silly.
If you do that though, you might fall under many laws promoted by corporations into power, that attempt to raise barrier to market entry trying to cut out joes with super cool ideas that can embarrass their multimillion IT departments, with flick of a finger, few key strokes and some ingenuity.
Fuck isn't it whats all america was all about, not a pathetic piece of (s.h*i-t), manned by mighty dollar and interest for profit. Not even a human being! But I digress.
Banner Ads War (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact is this: You have content I like, GREAT! You want to charge, I'll just go to another site that offers the same thing you do for free.
The internet is not designed to support subscription based sites really other than porn and a few other exceptions.
Sux though that adcritic went belly up
Banner free subscriptions (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhere else in the office someone says... "Why is our banner model not working again?
But really, that model stopped working a while ago so now most sites run "house" banners, advertising partner sites and various sections / products within their own sites.
Depends on the market (Score:2)
Monthly billing is probably unnecessary. Quarterly or annual billing would bypass the "minimum acceptable credit card charge" problem, and still provide a reasonable rate. I think $24/year might be ok.
Somewhere, somebody has to pay the freight, and bandwidth *isn't free*. How come nobody complains that they can't have 10TB of free downloads a month? How come people don't say "nobody will pay for internet access?"
Then there's the other inevitable costs of running a business, like taxes, equipment, etc., and suddenly there exists a need for revenue. That's just the way it is. As long as the price is reasonable, people will pay for a good product.
Who's going to pay? (Score:2)
I touched on the subject of paying for online content today in my Daily Aardvark [aardvark.co.nz] column when I suggested that ISPs might start collaborating with content providers to organize a micropayment facility.
The comments from readers make interesting reading -- it looks as if there's still quite a bit of resistance to paying for online content.
So long as there's someone offering equivalent content for free, those who want to charge will find it very hard going to squeeze people's wallets.
Re:Who's going to pay? (Score:2)
As long as it's equivalent. The commercial content provider has an incentive to provide a better product, promote that product, etc., while the free content provider usually provides a better product "when they get around to it."
Professionally-produced content is worth paying for, as long as the prices are reasonable, and it is a quality product.
Paying for no banner ads? (Score:4, Insightful)
What I'm really saying is: Pay for content. Don't pay for ad removal.
there is more free Internet than ever before (Score:2)
Let sites like NYT or Disney charge; who cares--you don't have to go there.
The good, the bad, and the solution (Score:3, Interesting)
The bad thing is that bandwidth isn't free. When amateur sites are good, they get popular, and their bandwidth cost increases without bound.
The solution. It'd be nice if the bandwidth costs were paid by users. We already pay money to our ISPs. In an ideal world this money should pay for the bandwidth costs of the http requests that we send *and* the contents that we receive in return. Fan sites would no longer fear the bandwidth costs of the slashdot effect. They would only have to worry about the server not crashing. And for that we have prayers.
Why I might pay for /. (Score:3, Insightful)
My view is this: It's like subscribing to a magazine. Except the magazine is updated very frequently and covers a much broader spectrum of news than any print magazine.
Yes, it's not perfect. Sometimes I don't agree with what editor X says, or what comment Y says, or what comment Y is moderated as, but it's the same as any other aspect of life: there are good and bad parts. It's an imperfect system, but I like it anyway.
I like
Since
Anyway, that's just my ignorant, pigheaded opinion. I do suppose it's a wee bit off-topic but I figure that a lot of posts on this thread will be talking about this very issue.
Network needed (Score:3, Insightful)
There needs to be a network. Users who want to subscribe to sites can go into the network and click a checkbox for all the sites they want, at a low price per site (more along the lines of $1/mo or something.) Then the total charge is added up and run through their CC once. This would help reduce credit card and processing charges for the individual sites; they'd just get a check every month from the network for all their subscribers.
Ad and Subscription Fees (Score:5, Insightful)
To recap my understanding of the issue, regular print periodicals are either completely paid for by users (mostly books, and your more distinquished journals), or by a combination of user fees and ad fees (most magazines and newspapers). A few periodicals get by purely on advertising (Village Voice, for instance)
It should be noted that in the mixed fee case, advertising provides the vast majority of revenue. Subscription fees pretty much are just used as a signal to advertisers that people are actually reading, and therefore willing to pay for, a magazine.
Since online pubs can completely verify readership, the signalling aspect of subscrber fees should have been rendered unnecessary. Also, since distribution of online content is cheaper than regular paper pubs by several orders of magnitude (though certainly not free, as was once touted), online pubs were thought to have an advantage over offline pubs in that regard.
Somewhere along the line, this new paradigm has, at least temporarily collapsed. I suspect a lot of it has to do with poor understanding of market forces and implemantation rather than the ultimate unfeasability of ad-supported, free online content.
Re:Ad and Subscription Fees (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it has to do with clickthrough. A magazine ad gets paid for wether or not you look at the ad or just flip to the next page. Nearly 100% of web ads are based on people actually clicking on the ads. If the original ad monkies had had thier heads on straight, we would have kept the OLD system, and subsequently seen 90% of the ad-revenue models succeed and we'd still be living in paradise.
Something you're forgetting (Score:2)
When I bought a Slackware Linux CD set and polo shirt, I wasn't paying $90 for the convenience of the extra discs (I'd already downloaded and burned install.iso) and a nice shirt to impress people at work (my boss loved it). I was making a donation to the guys who put together the distro I've been using since 1998, and that powers the web hosting company [slickhosting.com] my friend and I run. The Slackware team has managed to survive after being acquired and fired by WindRiver, and still produce one of the nicest, cleanest distributions out there - and it keeps getting better.
Current uptime on my Slackware box at home:
10:45pm up 110 days, 4:26, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Free beer and free speech are NOT the same thing. Support free speech - pay for stuff that's cool, whether you're required to or not.
I wouldn't pay... (Score:4, Funny)
...but I would put a $5 bill down CowboyNeal's g-string in exchange for a lapdance.
It all adds up (Score:3, Interesting)
We're getting nickle and dimed to death on all the stuff, and after a while, people are going to stop being willing and/or able to pay. *I'm* not paying $4.95 a month. And in SlashDots case, unless the ads suddenly start taking the whole screen, I don't even notice them. Some sites are in my firewall database so I never see the content anyway.
And incidently, how effective are these ads? It appears that ThinkGeek advertises a lot, but I never click through to them. I can probably count the number of ads I've clicked through on.
Now, for one time fees, like Opera, it's worth paying the $$$ to get rid of the ads. THOSE types of ads use screen space you can't get rid of, since it's integrated into the browser. For SlashDot type ads, they scroll right off the screen.
So does SD really think anyone will pay $4.95 for ad free, *other* than as a method to support the site (ie, they'd pay anyway, but this way they feel like they're getting something for their money?)
And speaking of nickles and dimes, anyone check their phone bill recently? New charge: Infra Structure Upgrade for disasters. Greaaat. And I'm not even done grousing about paying for 911 service on a line that I never (in fact, can't) make a voice call from.
--John (running out of nickles and dimes)
Is this a probe? (Score:2, Interesting)
Theoretically... (Score:2)
Of course, I come here because it is simply the best place to get well-informed views about geeky topics. The question is could it maintain its top-ranked position if it started charging?
Depends on too many factors to be sure, but I'll say one thing, if
Why not try and add some value? (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically what they have done is package some of their content and index it in a way that is worth some money each year.
The casual browser can still stop by and catch the news or discussion, but the interested user can subscribe and get nicely made PDF's of various articles and other things.
So much of what
I find it hard to believe that all the brains concentrated on this site a couple times a day that we cannot come up with something worth paying for.
Whadda think?
Re:Why not try and add some value? (Score:2)
I think that I would pay for something that would give me really good offline reading on a palm pilot or even *gulp* wap.
I think they could also setup advanced search functionality through the messages. Whenever I need to make a strong architecture decision or have development questions, first newsgroups, second slashdot.
Slashdot is not what makes slashdot neat, but it's the people that come here and add comment. If they closed users out, or made it dificult for the causual user to add content, their userbase will slowly die.. and migrate to someone elses basement slash site.. or who knows where.
Humor: What you'd REALLY like in pay-Slashdot? (Score:3, Funny)
- Purchasable karma - for a small additional fee, of course
...
- VIP chat with (insert your most-loved Slashdot editor here)
- Voting-out of (insert your most-hated Slashdot editor here)
- Priority consideration in the story-submission queue
- Higher rankings in comment submission
Suggest a few of your own! (I've kept my ideas non-obscene, since this is just meant in good fun).Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Re:Humor: What you'd REALLY like in pay-Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
That's not slashdot, that's a democracy!
Why is this happening? (Score:2)
Advertising is what used to pay the ISP bill, but lately i've seen many virtual webhosts and colocation providers put limitations on traffic, and charge by the gigabyte when you go over. Are the ISPs getting charged more by their ISP's?
Can anyone offer some insight on who's getting greedy here?
Content... careful bud. (Score:2)
Slashdot Subscription (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not the same thing, you're still offering the people who doesnt want to pay to freely use your site;
- people paying will a) feel good about themselves and b) help support slashdot
- people not paying can still access everything but will have to live with the ads and (possibly) support slashdot that way
It's a fair deal, someone's got to pay the bills.
I won't pay for ANY content on the Internet... (Score:2)
Otherwise, they can all go "invoice" themselves....
How long until the VA Systems bankruptcy? (Score:5, Insightful)
The way Downside [downside.com] views this data, it's not when the company dies, it's when the stockholders die. And they're already dead; the stock is down 99% (yes, 99%) from its peak. There are ways a company out of cash can continue to operate, (dilute, take on debt, sell off assets) but they're all terrible for the stockholders.
Charging for Slashdot looks like a last-ditch effort to give that asset some value for resale.
Problem with "free" sites. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have chosen to avoid ads alltogether on my site. If I get to the point that I need revenue to fund my site, I'll sell products from within to fund the bandwidth. Sure, I wouldn't get THAT many sales if the purpose of my site isn't to promote the products but rather content, but any sales are 100% mine I'm not feeding off pennies from banner ads purchased by other companies.
-Restil
I actually like the Slashdot ads... (Score:2)
I guess that's a novel concept, but hey, even as I sit here typing in this post I see the ad at the top for the Sharp Zaurus that I'll probably click on to because I'm a Geek and that looks interesting. And, if that helps Slashdot stick around, so much the better!
Bring on the adds /. (Score:2)
Add to that browsing in light mode and I would not even notice if you had a full page banner advert between every post/comment.
Now if you offered a nntp.slashdot.org then I would gladly pay $5 a month. Then I could take fixing the moderation system into my own hands.
Who would not love to have a ~/.Score file built with a slashdot section?
I would pay... (Score:2)
It's a size thing (Score:2)
Use Reptile.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think this is a good thing. It would require us to have a REAL revenue stream without having to rely on VC. People have to get used to the fact that someone needs to pay for the bills.
With Reptile we are going to integrate payment systems (paypal, merchant, etc) so that you can subscribe to content based on reputation..
This way you can subscibe to your favorite sites like slashdot or kuro5hin and and at the same time get access to a very high rated Salon article.
Of course a lot of this is still under development but we would love to get your help! [openprivacy.org]
I read slashdot filtered anyways. (Score:2)
Ive been using ad filters for over a year now, and its speeds up surfing by turning off ads. I love it. CNN and MSN have about 10 ads per page filtered. Thats 10 pictures or swf files I dont download. If you want it, its free for windows, its proxomitron [proxomitron.org] and a nice forum [yahoo.com] where people design updated filters. A nice new filter I just got closes the "This site is supported by Ads, click here to continue" ads. I never see them.
Micropayments? (Score:2, Insightful)
That is the only sane way to charge for web site
access mainly because you may not need a site
every single day.
Take windrivers.com. Great site but unless you're
big business, how often are you going to access
it?
Ah, there, I said it... big business.
So
companies either don't care or don't mind throwing
money around. And I always thought you were on
the little guys side
Well, I've gotten used to banner ads, heck even
popups don't bother me as I just don't visit those
sites as often as I used to. As for 4.95 a month
to stop banner ads? No way. Sorry dudes,
you're gona have to make those ads a damn sight
more annoying or go to popups before I even
consider paying that much.
My pay sites (Score:2)
www.airwindows.com [airwindows.com]
www.ampcast.com/chrisj [ampcast.com]
The deal is, the first is my web hosting and the second is my music. If you visit them, YOU do not pay- it's like a printed fanzine or something, I pay for the hosting.
I understand that bandwidth costs muchos, but I still dislike the idea of being charged solely for information- particularly if I'm not keeping it around. I pay for paper magazines- MacAddict, Cinefex- but those are kept. Someone had to print 'em up. Even then, they're heavily paid for by advertisers...
I just think some people are imagining a heavenly land where everyone on the Internet is paying them a penny because they're so wonderful, and this is wishful thinking... in order to charge people you gotta really be GIVING them something, and it's not enough to just have good information. There's tons of information, everywhere. What else ya got?
No such thing as free (Score:2, Insightful)
Pay for Quality Content (Score:5, Interesting)
What I see is that (and it has already started happening in the last year or so) all these little web sites will be bought up by a conglomerate and mergered together. The economics of this is quite smart. I mean, it's not really economical for one small company to have a 10K server and a 1k/month internet connection. If 10 of these sites have been merged together, they would come to 1/10 (maybe a little more) of the original cost. Examples of this are seen here at Slashdot, eVite by Excite, and others.
Even then, these conglomerates will still not be able to afford to make a decent profit (I mean, that's what companies are there for..making money) So they might in the end look towards a pay for content plan. So it becomes, people will only pay for content that they care about or are interested in. Content that they read frequently. In the end, it becomes a choice for the consumers where demand sets the price.
Now for the point of this post. I would gladly pay $2-5 (approximately the price of a newstand magazine) for access to quality content. I would definitely pay that much for access to read articles and post on slashdot. In addition, this would be a great raise the quality of the content (ie posting).
Also, a number of people have posted about using ad-blocker programs. In the end, those programs are only hurting yourself and everyone else on the internet. Company need the small amount of money coming from these advertisers to barely stay afloat. These programs only go to convince the advertisers to pay significantly less for the ads because less and less people are viewing the ads. Think about it this way, would advertisers pay millions of dollars to advertise during the Super Bowl if they found out that there was a technology that a good population of TV watchers are using to block the super bowl ads?
No such thing as a free lunch (Score:4, Insightful)
And since they already do respond to your http get requests, you can safely assume they pay for the ability. This simply means what we've al known for so long but have conveniently ignored for maybe the last decade:
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
It's no longer a question of whether
I agree that the technique adopted over at arstechnica seems interesting, but I'm not sure how successful it will be.
Honestly, I have no idea how
/. has unfettered access to the best minds out there currently; use them. Start an 'Ask Slashdot' thread to come up with an appropriate revenue model, then use a poll to evaluate the most likely alternatives.
Avantgo - end of free (Score:3, Interesting)
AvantGo [avantgo.com] is weeding out what they call "Custom channel abuse". Basically its 8 or more people creating a custom channel to a site that doesn't pay up for a licence. See the Register article here [theregister.co.uk] and the AvantGo announcement here [avantgo.com].
This means that things like Slashdots own palm friendly version [slashdot.org] and my AvantSlash [fourteenminutes.com] (along with thousands of other non-profit making sites who provide an ability to view their content for free) are going to be left a little out in the cold.
I've been recommended Plucker [plkr.org] for the Palm and Mazingo [mazingo.net] for the PPC - not tried either though.
Why don't banner ads work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Banner ads, the idea behind them, does work. The problem is that people have come to the decision that they will only pay for banner ads that are quantifiable... I.E. Click Throughs.
This is not, and should not be the case. Banner ads should be sold on the number or visits on a site, and the popularity of the site.
Just like advertisers want to be seen during superbowl.... Why? Many, many eyeballs. So their willing to pay a hefty price!
I don't see a comercial during the superbowl and go... "Whoa... I gotta have that!" and then leave to go to the store.... NO! I finish watching the superbowl and then at a later date, with the proverbial commercial seed planted in my brain, I go and purchase that product.
The same goes for banner ads. It's a form of advertisement. I'm not going to drop everything to go and head over to that site..... I'm here at slashdot or where-ever for a reason. I'll do what I have to, and then later.... When I'm not too busy.... I'll head over to thinkgeek and buy that hat.
Yes I purchased many a thing at ThinkGeek and elsewhere, because of banner-ads (I would not have known about them otherwise) but I have NEVER purchased anything by means of a click-through.
So in quantifiable means, the banner ad didn't work. There was a click through but no purchase.
Ah, but I did purchase. Just at a later date.
I can't stress this fact enough.... We do not drop everything when we see a tv ad and head to the store... we do it later. Does this mean because we didn't drop anything that TV ads are failing?
Time for a philosophy change.
Good Old Days... (Score:3)
I think our perspective has changed as these sites still exist, and there is still a kind of "undernet" out there, that is often ignored by the search engines (free pages), or are simply not linked to by the "mainstream" net sites because they offer no opportunity to make a buck. It's still a neat place to spend an evening surfing around, just for the sake of surfing.
I pay for what I want to reward (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot would be one of those. No banner ads is worth $0.00 a month to me.. I ignore them anyway. But if my few dollars a month helps keep it around and running well, THAT is worth it.
Why I wouldn't pay for slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Forget the ny times and it's free registration problems - we'd have to pay out for another subscription for every other link!
maybe paying should give you extra +1 bonus (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Banner ads? What banner ads? (Score:2)
For those running Squid, I wrote BannerFilter [phroggy.com].
Re:Utopia (Score:2)
But another thing that some companies have done is pay too much for a site or right's to do a site in the first place. One example is NASCAR.com. Turner Interactive bought the rights to do the site for 100 million dollars. Everyone scratched their heads....why would anyone do this and last year as well (the contract is 5 years). This was too much money, but yet it's a drop in the bucket for both NASCAR and Turner. But this year, they decided to go subscription for racecast and almost all of the crappy realvideo you want to see. They used to charge nothing for this and the delays and stuff was just taken (heck we get it for free who the heck cared if it was 2 laps behind). This year they started to charge for what was esentially the same thign they used to offer for free but now at 4.95 per month. Now people were pissed. Now I don;t see them doing it much longer without a class action suit (they advertised real time....2 laps bhind is not real time!). Anyway, websites should be careful. If you are going to offer something sub standard then charge for it, well you better raise it's standard...
Re:why banner-free? (Score:3, Interesting)
Once these companies go bankrupt, AOL/TW will buy up all content services and put it only accessible within their framework. What would your WebWasher do for you then? Would you be more willing to pay a couple dollars a month for the service now or 21.95 for an AOL/TW account?