
"If you are not paying for it..." - acangiano
http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-discontent#3256046
======
gkoberger
We've created a culture where we want everything for free, even going as far
as to block ads with AdBlock... and then we complain when things don't go our
way.

This can't be sustained forever. If we want legitimate content producers to
take the Internet seriously as a platform, we need to start forking over
money.

Edit: To anyone replying to me, we can debate this forever. The Chris Anderson
v Malcolm Gladwell debate proved it's a controversial topic. However, I don't
know where you're getting "close to zero." A good engineer or other employee
is at least $100k a year. It may cost almost nothing for new headlines to show
up on Digg every day, however Diggs 100 or so employees all need to put food
on the table somehow.

~~~
Alex3917
"This can't be sustained forever. If we want legitimate content producers to
take the Internet seriously as a platform, we need to start forking over
money."

Right now there's only a tiny trickle of good content being created on the
Internet. Of the hundreds of thousands of posts being written each day, there
are maybe 5 at best that don't completely suck. What we really need is a
system where the authors of the best 25 articles of the day each take home
100K or so. For the nominal cost of less than a billion dollars a year we
could spark an intellectual renaissance to rival any other in human history.

~~~
billybob
"Of the hundreds of thousands of posts being written each day, there are maybe
5 at best that don't completely suck."

I'm sorry, but that's just silly. 1) You're not reading the whole internet, 2)
you're not the intended audience for much of what's written, and 3) opinions
vary.

Are you proposing we replace the free market of authors and readers with some
central judging authority? How would these people filter through all this
content, on what basis would they judge it, and how would they be funded? How
do we protected against government meddling and political bias?

This is a pretty big problem you're creating to replace a system which,
basically, seems to work fine. It would be nice to help creators make money,
but you can't fix human taste.

~~~
Alex3917
"Are you proposing we replace the free market of authors and readers"

We don't have a free market of authors and readers. Readers don't currently
pay authors, this is what needs to change.

"How would these people filter through all this content, on what basis would
they judge it, and how would they be funded? How do we protected against
government meddling and political bias?"

Not sure.

"This is a pretty big problem you're creating to replace a system which,
basically, seems to work fine."

I don't think it works fine at all, judging by the fact that all of our
biggest problems are marketing problems. In any given area of society the
science is between 25 and 100 years ahead of the status quo.

~~~
billybob
"We don't have a free market of authors and readers. Readers don't currently
pay authors, this is what needs to change."

OK. But 1) readers are free to reward authors IF they want to, and 2) authors
can potentially make money from their readership by selling ads and t-shirts,
getting speaking gigs and job offers and holding conferences, etc. So there's
freedom, and there's a market. If people don't value something enough to pay
for it, you can't force them to value it. They have a right to their own
opinions.

Sure, 99% of authors make zip. But I bet a larger percentage of the population
makes money creating stuff on the web than they did when you had to have a
publishing deal to publish anything.

My point with "how would they be funded" was this: either it's voluntary or
it's not. If you want to create a voluntary system, great - try to market some
kind of micropayments thing or whatever. But if a committee is making the
decisions about what's good, and I have no input, the only way I can see for
them to get my money to put into the prize pot is to tax me. And I'm opposed
to that, both because it's my money and because I distrust this hypothetical
committee. What enlightened people do you imagine should be officially
blessing The Best Of The Web? I bet my list is different from yours.

Oh! I know! Let's have lots of committees! In fact, let's all be our own
committee! Freedom of thought and whatnot!

You see where I end back up?

"I don't think it works fine at all, judging by the fact that all of our
biggest problems are marketing problems."

If you define 'people mistreat their neighbors for personal gain' as a
marketing problem, maybe. I think it's a lot deeper than that. I'd call it a
spiritual problem.

"In any given area of society the science is between 25 and 100 years ahead of
the status quo."

Not sure what you mean by this, but science is a tool, not a solution.
Psychology, for example, can help you understand what motivates people and how
to influence them, but it can't tell you what SHOULD motivate people and how
they SHOULD behave. It can as easily be used for evil as for good. Casinos use
plenty of science to drain their victims of every last nickel.

------
_delirium
Sometimes even if you _are_ paying for it, if someone else is paying more. For
example, newspaper subscribers are closer to being products than customers,
since ad revenue is typically much larger than subscription revenue.

~~~
nanairo
Very true. As I've been studying this topic lately I can even provide you some
hard data.

A financially stable newspaper gets around 75-80% of its gross revenue from
advertisements. That's why advertisers have so much power over content, even
news content. I don't know the exact figure for magazines, and it could very
well be lower, but this should give you an idea.

In fact if you check the literature you'll see that a common idea is that
newspapers are in the business of selling customers to advertisers, and they
will try to attract a certain type of reader in order to get certain type of
advertisers.

~~~
fortes
> A financially stable newspaper gets around 75-80% of its gross revenue from
> advertisements.

In the glory days, a solid 30-40% of revenue was from classified ads, which
were _way_ overpriced, but the only game in town.

You may find this of interest:
[http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2010/09/newspaper-ad-sales-
hea...](http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2010/09/newspaper-ad-sales-head-
to-25-year-low.html)

------
zach
This needs to be memorialized. Understanding this, of course, explains
Google's approach to customer, er, consumer service.

Much to their nonpaying consumers' chagrin, naturally. Because consumers'
support and service expectation does scale with the price they pay, but not
all the way to zero!

On the business side, nonpaying consumers are cheaper to scale up than any
product you can sell. Which is a blessing and a curse...

~~~
bpm140
The guy who said it is Andrew Lewis. Might I suggest "Lewis's Law"?

~~~
zach
I would've thought there would be a legitimate claim on the name already, but
it appears not. Lewis's Law it is!

------
pbw
Even if you _are_ paying for it you might be the product being sold. Consider
hip night club or a star trek convention, in both cases people pay to get in,
but the crowd is really the main attraction. People spend hours getting ready
for these things. I'm told.

Any crowd is going to be part of the product being sold and the market you
sell into. Any crowd, online or off, is going to draw performers, whether for
free or professional.

People like to be seen, they like to be noticed, they like to contribute. I
don't see user-generated sites as some kind of slave mine. Most people are
online of their own free will.

~~~
Qz
Amended: "If you're not paying what it's worth, ..."

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Apple announces on stage as part of its keynotes how many credit cards it has
on file. In other words they're selling _you_ right there in the open. Can you
really argue that you're getting your contract AT&T iPhone for less than it's
worth?

~~~
nanairo
But Apple cannot sell your credit card number to other people, they still need
to get you to pay for it. Advertisement is different.

Advertisers pay the newspaper immediately in order to appear on the
newspaper/magazine. And because they pay so much more than people buying the
actual newspaper/magazine, it can be a great business for the later to attract
more people... even going as far as giving the newspaper away for free.

Apple (pre iAds) was making money from you buying the phone: compared to that
making money from apps sold is peanuts. So much so that it can be beneficial
to let app developers in for free just to get more people buying the phone.

To summarise: Apple tries to attract customers with apps, newspapers try to
attract advertisers with customers. Customers don't buy more newspapers
because there are more ads, but advertisers buy more ads space if there are
more customers.

------
ugh
That seems like an overly simplistic portrayal to me. You might not pay
anything for using Google but that doesn’t mean that Google can do whatever
they want.

The relationship between Google and yourself wouldn’t change much if they did
away with the ads and charged you money. They want to keep you happy whether
you are a customer (i.e. directly pay them money) or not. Paying customer or
ad target, it doesn’t really matter all that much.

Two sided markets with their network effects are certainly fascinating [+] but
they are also nothing new, nothing extraordinary and certainly not abusive.

[+] It is possible to get negative prices (whenever you get anything for free
you can immediately start to look for the two sided market and network
effects) and prices that would otherwise be above monopoly prices.

------
jbert
...you're either the product being sold or you're enjoying a publically
provided service whose costs are met by the taxpaying base.

~~~
run4yourlives
i.e. You.

------
kiba
This is negative news and media is biased toward negative stuff. Moreover, it
is a mention of a few well known companies and sites.

I hypothesize that the players are merely changing and that their strategy of
getting large userbase fail because the quality of content is falling, rather
than rising, thus decreasing the traffic quality.

This is also in conjuncture with the hypothesis that specialized interests
tend to convert better than general social interests because specialized
interests tend to have product related items they like to buy.

~~~
natep
I think you're responding to the article, when the post links to a comment by
blue_beetle, FYI.

