Well, this sucks. Reddit is THE place to view and participate in discussion of most anything since internet forums seem to be either dead or impossible to find outside of this one, and Reddit replacements like Lemmy never took off. Especially for those of us who don't like live chat and as such don't use things like Discord (which is where a lot of online discussion seems to have migrated to). Heck, I don't even have a Reddit account, but I lurk on several subreddits every single day, and it's amazing how many web searches I have that end with "site:reddit.com" as the only other results are articles that don't quite offer what I want, especially when I'm looking for answers to esoteric questions, such as why certain political trends are happening around the world and whatnot.
QuoteReddit, a platform founded in part on the premise of openly and widely sharing information, is ready to put up some paywalls. In a video Ask Me Anything (AMA) session hosted by CEO Steve Huffman following the company's quarterly earnings report (which went poorly), the founder and exec said Reddit is actively testing ways to make some content require payment to access and plans to roll out a "paid subreddit" feature later this year.
Huffman described the paid content model as a "work in progress" but mentioned it would be one of the "new, key features" that the company intends to introduce in 2025. It marks a continuation of Huffman's focus on requiring payment to access certain areas on Reddit. Last year, the CEO said the company was looking into building a new type of subreddit that would include "exclusive content or private areas" hidden behind a paywall.
https://gizmodo.com/reddit-ceo-says-paywalls-are-coming-soon-2000564245
Fuck spez.
Problem of each and every internet project - regardless of how great and useful they are, they struggle to pay for themselves.
And I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
Quote from: vdeane on February 15, 2025, 04:04:37 PMWell, this sucks. Reddit is THE place to view and participate in discussion of most anything since internet forums seem to be either dead or impossible to find outside of this one, and Reddit replacements like Lemmy never took off. Especially for those of us who don't like live chat and as such don't use things like Discord (which is where a lot of online discussion seems to have migrated to). Heck, I don't even have a Reddit account, but I lurk on several subreddits every single day, and it's amazing how many web searches I have that end with "site:reddit.com" as the only other results are articles that don't quite offer what I want, especially when I'm looking for answers to esoteric questions, such as why certain political trends are happening around the world and whatnot.
QuoteReddit, a platform founded in part on the premise of openly and widely sharing information, is ready to put up some paywalls. In a video Ask Me Anything (AMA) session hosted by CEO Steve Huffman following the company's quarterly earnings report (which went poorly), the founder and exec said Reddit is actively testing ways to make some content require payment to access and plans to roll out a "paid subreddit" feature later this year.
Huffman described the paid content model as a "work in progress" but mentioned it would be one of the "new, key features" that the company intends to introduce in 2025. It marks a continuation of Huffman's focus on requiring payment to access certain areas on Reddit. Last year, the CEO said the company was looking into building a new type of subreddit that would include "exclusive content or private areas" hidden behind a paywall.
https://gizmodo.com/reddit-ceo-says-paywalls-are-coming-soon-2000564245
I wouldn't worry about it too much just yet, since it will probably just be the NSFW stuff. The rest of the site is essentially just a message board that no one is going to pay for.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
Found the Tory.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
You create some very strange villains in your narratives.
The reality is also that most people don't have money to throw at every single thing that decides they have to get a cut from its users. It's a sticky situation for everybody.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan3561 on February 15, 2025, 07:44:34 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
You create some very strange villains in your narratives.
The reality is also that most people don't have money to throw at every single thing that decides they have to get a cut from its users. It's a sticky situation for everybody.
The other reality is that ones like reddit and wikipedia, Linux foundation or libroffice - are big companies which need to pay their employees, maintain and power servers, pay their Internet provider bills etc.
So money still have to come from somewhere. Some ads definitely help, but there are adblockers as well, and ad market capacity is limited anyway.
There are already features to pay for in Reddit (or receive for free if you make a really good post and others spend their money on you).
Quote from: kalvado on February 15, 2025, 07:53:08 PMQuote from: TheHighwayMan3561 on February 15, 2025, 07:44:34 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
You create some very strange villains in your narratives.
The reality is also that most people don't have money to throw at every single thing that decides they have to get a cut from its users. It's a sticky situation for everybody.
The other reality is that ones like reddit and wikipedia, Linux foundation or libroffice - are big companies which need to pay their employees, maintain and power servers, pay their Internet provider bills etc.
So money still have to come from somewhere. Some ads definitely help, but there are adblockers as well, and ad market capacity is limited anyway.
I'm aware of that.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan3561 on February 15, 2025, 07:44:34 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
You create some very strange villains in your narratives.
The reality is also that most people don't have money to throw at every single thing that decides they have to get a cut from its users. It's a sticky situation for everybody.
??? There is no villain and I have no narrative.
Businesses have to make money somehow to survive. Paywalls are a way they can do that. And of course people don't have enough money to throw at everything. Reddit, just like the New York Times or Netflix or whomever, is banking that the quality of its product means that people will pay for its use.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
I agree in theory, but the issue is whether people decide it's worth paying for. I follow a few Reddit forums (Choosing Beggars, Bridezillas, Wedding Drama, Clever Comebacks, We Want Plates) but none of them means enough to me that I think it's worth worth paying for. I won't lose any sleep if I lose access to any of them tomorrow.
A person that would pay for reddit exactly matches the description of a person that should not be paying for reddit.
Admittedly, if the entire site theoretically became paywalled, I might pay $1.99 a month or whatever for r/NFL during the football season. That's it though.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
Nearly all of Reddit's content is user-generated, and the users aren't getting paid for that. Why would people post content for free that would then end up behind a paywall that would make money for someone else? For that matter, since the mods aren't paid either, why would people moderate the user-generated content for free so someone else can make money?
Quote from: TheCatalyst31 on February 15, 2025, 09:59:39 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
Nearly all of Reddit's content is user-generated, and the users aren't getting paid for that. Why would people post content for free that would then end up behind a paywall that would make money for someone else? For that matter, since the mods aren't paid either, why would people moderate the user-generated content for free so someone else can make money?
I guess we might find out right?
Quote from: kalvado on February 15, 2025, 07:53:08 PMLinux foundation or libroffice - are big companies which need to pay their employees, maintain and power servers, pay their Internet provider bills etc.
Comparing open-source projects like LibreOffice to big tech companies like Reddit is like comparing apples and oranges. Mainly because open-source projects generally have no profit motive.
Open-source projects like Linux and LibreOffice (and Simple Machines Forum and Gimp and Inkscape and Firefox and KDE and...) are written by volunteer programmers for fun (Linux was famously created simply because it was winter in Finland and Linus Torvalds wanted to learn how the 386 processor worked; I guess renumbering American highways and creating spurious calendars to pass the time never occurred to him) or because they need them to exist (one of the developers of Krita, a digital art program, is the author of a webcomic and programs Krita on the side any time he needs a feature the program doesn't have yet). Companies can then use these programs without needing to pay for them. However, if a company needs XYZ feature that doesn't exist yet, they have two options. They ask nicely for it and hope someone does it for free, which may be unlikely if there's a lot of people asking for features or if those features don't matter to the rest of the userbase. Or they can hire someone on their own payroll to add the feature, thus expediting the request.
Generally open-source projects don't have a lot of overhead, because they have no employees, and the server costs aren't really expensive. The Linux Foundation mostly exists to own and protect the Linux trademark, because Linus had a bad experience in the 90s with someone trying to trademark it out from under him. Normally there's a small organization that handles that, small enough that it can be handled through donations from Users Like You (Thank You). I think KDE gets part of its funding from developer get-togethers that they sell tickets for, the proceeds of which are used to pay the overhead (it would be like if Alex charged $20 to attend a roadmeet and put all the money he got into server costs).
The real hazard that kills open-source projects is not financial but rather just not being able to attract enough developer attention, and the program goes unmaintained. Sometimes that happens because there's a shinier new project to attract the attention (like Wayland starting to usurp X.org, which itself usurped XFree86, or Inkscape usurping SodiPodi), sometimes it's because the senior devs pissed everyone off (which normally leads to a fork, like AARoads Wiki), sometimes it's just because the idea became obsolete (as has happened to a lot of dead programming languages).
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 08:45:28 PMQuote from: TheHighwayMan3561 on February 15, 2025, 07:44:34 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
You create some very strange villains in your narratives.
The reality is also that most people don't have money to throw at every single thing that decides they have to get a cut from its users. It's a sticky situation for everybody.
??? There is no villain and I have no narrative.
Businesses have to make money somehow to survive. Paywalls are a way they can do that. And of course people don't have enough money to throw at everything. Reddit, just like the New York Times or Netflix or whomever, is banking that the quality of its product means that people will pay for its use.
Maybe they should have thought of that before they got everyone used to getting things for free. A lot of enshitification could have been avoided if people had thought up their business plans
first instead of saying "let's just set something up on the internet to attract users and then figure out how to monetize it later". Inevitably the site can't be monetized without having to force people to pay or making the user experience worse.
We're also seeing this with news. Newspapers are going under and often turning to paywalls since they just put everything up for free online without thinking of how they would make money. Trouble is, now everyone is accustomed to reading an article here and an article there, and nobody wants to go back to committing to one source to subscribe to. While they were there "attracting users" and leaving the monetization problem for later (if they even realized they had one... many news organizations seemed to think their website would remain a novelty and that newspapers/cable would remain the primary way users would get their content), the world changed.
Conspiracy theory: they believe at some point soon that net neutrality may be biting the dust, and in doing so a high traffic site like Reddit may be stuck footing a bill they've never had. Have to pass that buck somewhere.
Quote from: SectorZ on February 15, 2025, 11:25:32 PMConspiracy theory: they believe at some point soon that net neutrality may be biting the dust, and in doing so a high traffic site like Reddit may be stuck footing a bill they've never had. Have to pass that buck somewhere.
That may well be part of it. However, a more obvious motivation is simply that, due to interest rates being raised to combat inflation, the era of cheap money is over. You can't just take out a loan for operating expenses the way you could through the 2010s.
This is part of why I harp on people to actually take their own pictures of road related stuff and not just rely on GSV for everything, incidentally. GSV is really cool and a valuable tool for our community, but it's also not entirely clear how much it pays for itself. Google could just delete it if they ever decided it cost them more than it was worth.
Quote from: vdeane on February 15, 2025, 11:18:44 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 08:45:28 PMQuote from: TheHighwayMan3561 on February 15, 2025, 07:44:34 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 15, 2025, 05:23:50 PMAnd I'm not sure why people expect they should get it for free.
You create some very strange villains in your narratives.
The reality is also that most people don't have money to throw at every single thing that decides they have to get a cut from its users. It's a sticky situation for everybody.
??? There is no villain and I have no narrative.
Businesses have to make money somehow to survive. Paywalls are a way they can do that. And of course people don't have enough money to throw at everything. Reddit, just like the New York Times or Netflix or whomever, is banking that the quality of its product means that people will pay for its use.
Maybe they should have thought of that before they got everyone used to getting things for free. A lot of enshitification could have been avoided if people had thought up their business plans first instead of saying "let's just set something up on the internet to attract users and then figure out how to monetize it later". Inevitably the site can't be monetized without having to force people to pay or making the user experience worse.
We're also seeing this with news. Newspapers are going under and often turning to paywalls since they just put everything up for free online without thinking of how they would make money. Trouble is, now everyone is accustomed to reading an article here and an article there, and nobody wants to go back to committing to one source to subscribe to. While they were there "attracting users" and leaving the monetization problem for later (if they even realized they had one... many news organizations seemed to think their website would remain a novelty and that newspapers/cable would remain the primary way users would get their content), the world changed.
Your first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Regarding your second, I think you are correct that newspapers intially thought that their websites would be more of a novelty but they had an essential problem before the internet came around. They made most of their revenue in classifieds and not subscriptions - in many ways people had decided their content wasn't worth the cost long ago. The internet absolutely killed off their main revenue source.
That being said, there is still room for news sites that provide quality content. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, etc. are all "traditional" publications that have done fairly well with attracting users to their site. But there are also a ton of quality substack (or similar) publications where people will pay for quality content.
Part of the problem with newspapers like Gannett, is that they just cut costs instead of investing in content. And their web experience is awful. Sites that look like the 1990s with constant pop up ads is not what users want. Why would I pay for that?
Quote from: vdeane on February 15, 2025, 11:18:44 PMMaybe they should have thought of that before they got everyone used to getting things for free. A lot of enshitification could have been avoided if people had thought up their business plans first instead of saying "let's just set something up on the internet to attract users and then figure out how to monetize it later".
Do you think this is realistic?
Web popularity tends to work against itself: The perpetual clash over the information 100% provided by users and the owners, programmers, hosting expenses means we'll probably just get even more obnoxious advertising.
Let me guess, three free views a month, and then you have to pay a monthly fee to see anything else. So the first click is wasted on something that could have found on the web if they did 15 minutes of research, the second click is some stranger just bragging without much of any useful insight, and the third one was just a rehashed argument with a comment string about the friends we made along the way.
I can't see the paid model working well; the incentive would be canvassing more umpteen-times-seen junk for "karma" and then more misinformation gets floated to the top, instead of drowned out, as the model generally works (except for hive-mind issues).
I've found the r/photography and related subs are also quite useful. There's plenty of technical information out there on the web but when it's one-sided, used for shock-and-awe, and promotion-based, my skepticism kicks in. You get a lot more experience and know-how from people who have used items for the long term, not just long enough to get the YouTube video published. And there's really no replacement for r/justrolledintotheshop...but I also should curtail how much I browse it some days...
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMRegarding your second, I think you are correct that newspapers intially thought that their websites would be more of a novelty but they had an essential problem before the internet came around. They made most of their revenue in classifieds and not subscriptions - in many ways people had decided their content wasn't worth the cost long ago. The internet absolutely killed off their main revenue source.
That being said, there is still room for news sites that provide quality content. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, etc. are all "traditional" publications that have done fairly well with attracting users to their site. But there are also a ton of quality substack (or similar) publications where people will pay for quality content.
Many newspapers were very late to finding their place on the internet. Using the example of classifieds, Craigslist and other sites where people could sell stuff and list it for free beat anything newspapers were offering. Job sites and their associated listings are another example.
Newspapers thought of themselves as a "you need us" type business. When it was found people could do things cheaper, newspapers respondwd not by doing what they do better, but by cutting staff and eliminating the very things people bought newspapers for.
When the Eagles won the Superbowl, I expected the Philadelphia Inquirer would have a lot of stories about ths game. What I didn't expect was for them to raise the price of the paper from $2.95 to $6.95. And they really didn't have that much in the paper about the game. Just absolutely horrible goodwill that'll be remembered and will hurt future sales.
I run a couple smallish car-related subreddits and don't see the benefit of this for either the user or the sub.
Quote from: formulanone on February 16, 2025, 09:06:34 AMI can't see the paid model working well; the incentive would be canvassing more umpteen-times-seen junk for "karma" and then more misinformation gets floated to the top, instead of drowned out, as the model generally works (except for hive-mind issues).
That already happens now with repost bots and other spambots.
Quote from: Takumi on February 16, 2025, 01:00:30 PMI run a couple smallish car-related subreddits and don't see the benefit of this for either the user or the sub.
I know for a fact that I won't make anything in the subreddit I own locked behind a paywall. If they force me, I'm out.
Quote from: Takumi on February 16, 2025, 01:00:30 PMI run a couple smallish car-related subreddits and don't see the benefit of this for either the user or the sub.
Quote from: formulanone on February 16, 2025, 09:06:34 AMI can't see the paid model working well; the incentive would be canvassing more umpteen-times-seen junk for "karma" and then more misinformation gets floated to the top, instead of drowned out, as the model generally works (except for hive-mind issues).
That already happens now with repost bots and other spambots.
I see it a lot in things like r/pics an other very-popular subreddits. I just wonder how much it would play out in the smaller, more specialized ones.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such
must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
I mean is Reddit not a publicly traded company? The investors have the right to run it however they like, even it makes the product appreciably worse.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 02:33:16 PMI mean is Reddit not a publicly traded company? The investors have the right to run it however they like, even it makes the product appreciably worse.
They have a great, but fragile asset. Question is how to make it to make it work without destroying the value. Paid premium features are one thing, dumping entire thing into AI training is another...
Quote from: kalvado on February 16, 2025, 02:56:44 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 02:33:16 PMI mean is Reddit not a publicly traded company? The investors have the right to run it however they like, even it makes the product appreciably worse.
They have a great, but fragile asset. Question is how to make it to make it work without destroying the value. Paid premium features are one thing, dumping entire thing into AI training is another...
Isn't it more a case that Reddit is one of the last major forum-like websites left? My thought is that the format isn't mlong for this world anyways and won't need much of a push to completely tank.
Quote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
Charging for something that used to be free should be illegal...because people are surprised?
I mean come on. Why do people want to use laws to outlaw things they don't like versus things that are actually detrimental to society?
No one is harmed in any material way if Reddit starts charging for their site. No one is defrauded or anything.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 03:04:06 PMQuote from: kalvado on February 16, 2025, 02:56:44 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 02:33:16 PMI mean is Reddit not a publicly traded company? The investors have the right to run it however they like, even it makes the product appreciably worse.
They have a great, but fragile asset. Question is how to make it to make it work without destroying the value. Paid premium features are one thing, dumping entire thing into AI training is another...
Isn't it more a case that Reddit is one of the last major forum-like websites left? My thought is that the format isn't mlong for this world anyways and won't need much of a push to completely tank.
Maybe, given stack exchange is also there
But I believe there enough people who do need text and feedback system for things to exist at least another decade or two.
Quote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
So if a company was charging $5/month for a service from the beginning then jacked the rate to $100/month, should that be illegal as well? That's an increase of $95 per month, as opposed to reddit theoretically charging a few dollars a month tops. If reddit charges $2/month, that's an increase of $2.
Should this logic extend to landlords? If an area becomes more desirable or the landlord does thorough renovations, should they not be able to raise rent for subsequent signings? How does this cooperate with inflation in general?
Not to mention, there's every chance that a service gets better when the price increases, negating the already extremely subjective "user experience" point. 5 years ago Geoguessr started charging like $2/month. Since then the site has shot up in quality and popularity.
This is new urbanist behavior right here. Making wild and unspecific demands that will never be acted upon instead of making reasonable and specific demands that could be acted upon. So instead of some positive change, the result is nothing.
Quote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
It should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
My thoughts on the matter have not changed. I do not respect companies who monetize content that was previously free.
If they can find a way to put newer content behind the paywall while keeping the content from before the cut-off date accessible, I would have less of an issue with it. If they just make every archived post (which can be viewed but not commented on) free to view, that would be even more ideal.
Quote from: SectorZ on February 16, 2025, 05:24:05 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
It should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
Not to mention "morally repugnant." Which is strange, because I don't even think its unethical. Businesses do this all of the time.
For example, a local ice cream shop has a grand opening where it offers free samples. Is it then "morally repugnant" to charge for the ice cream later?
I'm not really opposed to paying for services, with two conditions. First I don't want my payment information to be held by everyone everywhere. I'd be more interested in an intermediary, such as a broker or the payment processing companies (Visa, etc.) handling subscriptions. Rather than everyone you give your card number to being an intermediary between you and your own money through that card, the company that processes the card (or some other single and trusted operation) could be an intermediary between you and your subscription providers. I would sign up for a subscription and give Reddit, or whoever, an account number to access the account in which I set up payments for it. Reddit never has my card number or access to any funds other than what's in that account. The payment processor already collects a fee on each payment, and that fee would presumably increase for the additional service, but it would provide a new service where you can see all of your subscriptions and give you a centralized way to cancel them. It would also make all cancellations online. The processor would inform the company of the cancellation. You wouldn't have to call anyone to cancel, like it's still 1990. (I know of one service for which automatic payment cancellation requires informing, in writing, both the service and your bank of your wish to cancel. It doesn't specify that it must be a notarized sworn statement delivered by certified mail, but I wouldn't be surprised.) The company would be informed of the cancellation, and if they don't accept that, there are no funds available.
Also, I don't like the assumption that a subscription service must cost at least $15 per month. I'd be much more likely to sign up for something that costs a dollar or two each month, or maybe $15 for a year, and knowing that some possibly scummy service (or whoever hacks them) doesn't have full access to my bank account, but only has access to a payment account that I choose to fund or not. If you have millions of users, a small amount each month from each of them would substantially supplement your ad revenue. You can charge more for ad-free service for those who don't know how to block ads, and charge more for heavy users. Wanting everyone to pay for heavy use access is a good way to crush your viewer numbers and ad revenue, gaining a little while losing a lot.
Quote from: wxfree on February 16, 2025, 06:04:48 PMAlso, I don't like the assumption that a subscription service must cost at least $15 per month.
Discord Nitro is $10 per month. Flickr Pro is $50 per year. Apple Music is $11 per month. There are many subscriptions that cost less than $15 per month.
I recall a lot of people thought Flickr going to a paid model for unlimited storage would tank the site. That page has been the only one of my storage mediums that hasn't tanked since 2017.
Quote from: wxfree on February 16, 2025, 06:04:48 PMI'm not really opposed to paying for services, with two conditions. First I don't want my payment information to be held by everyone everywhere. I'd be more interested in an intermediary, such as a broker or the payment processing companies (Visa, etc.) handling subscriptions. Rather than everyone you give your card number to being an intermediary between you and your own money through that card, the company that processes the card (or some other single and trusted operation) could be an intermediary between you and your subscription providers. I would sign up for a subscription and give Reddit, or whoever, an account number to access the account in which I set up payments for it. Reddit never has my card number or access to any funds other than what's in that account. The payment processor already collects a fee on each payment, and that fee would presumably increase for the additional service, but it would provide a new service where you can see all of your subscriptions and give you a centralized way to cancel them. It would also make all cancellations online. The processor would inform the company of the cancellation. You wouldn't have to call anyone to cancel, like it's still 1990. (I know of one service for which automatic payment cancellation requires informing, in writing, both the service and your bank of your wish to cancel. It doesn't specify that it must be a notarized sworn statement delivered by certified mail, but I wouldn't be surprised.) The company would be informed of the cancellation, and if they don't accept that, there are no funds available.
Most sites use third parties to manage their transactions. When you enter credit card information for a random subscription, the site doesn't have access to your credit card information. The third party payer does. And the regulations around that information are pretty strict.
For instance, at my employer, I oversee a website that collects and stores credit card payments for certain trancations. Those payments never touch our web-server. It is all managed by a third party who has a form on our site that goes directly to that third party.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 06:13:07 PMI recall a lot of people thought Flickr going to a paid model for unlimited storage would tank the site. That page has been the only one of my storage mediums that hasn't tanked since 2017.
Gosh its almost like if companies have revenue for a service, that service can improve.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 05:50:21 PMQuote from: SectorZ on February 16, 2025, 05:24:05 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
It should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
Not to mention "morally repugnant." Which is strange, because I don't even think its unethical. Businesses do this all of the time.
For example, a local ice cream shop has a grand opening where it offers free samples. Is it then "morally repugnant" to charge for the ice cream later?
If I go to an ice cream shop and get a free sample, I am under no delusion that it is a gift, they expect me to purchase something immediately after trying the sample, and they may not offer samples in the future if people decide to take advantage of it. With any social media, the assumption of millions of users is that anything that is accessible for free will continue to be free in perpetuity.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 06:14:42 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 06:13:07 PMI recall a lot of people thought Flickr going to a paid model for unlimited storage would tank the site. That page has been the only one of my storage mediums that hasn't tanked since 2017.
Gosh its almost like if companies have revenue for a service, that service can improve.
Me personally, I'm good paying for stability. I've never had consistent luck with portable storage devices and been burned by relying on them a couple times.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 06:16:54 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 05:50:21 PMQuote from: SectorZ on February 16, 2025, 05:24:05 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
It should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
Not to mention "morally repugnant." Which is strange, because I don't even think its unethical. Businesses do this all of the time.
For example, a local ice cream shop has a grand opening where it offers free samples. Is it then "morally repugnant" to charge for the ice cream later?
If I go to an ice cream shop and get a free sample, I am under no delusion that it is a gift, they expect me to purchase something immediately after trying the sample, and they may not offer samples in the future if people decide to take advantage of it. With any social media, the assumption of millions of users is that anything that is accessible for free will continue to be free in perpetuity.
So it's "morally repugnant" to get something free for a longer period of time???
I mean, would it be "morally repugnant" for the AARoads mods to charge $5 a month for this site??
What if the aforementioned ice cream shop had "Free Ice Cream Mondays" where all customers got a free scoop. After a few months, they realized they're losing a lot of money on the deal and stop the promotion. Is that "morally repugnant" as well??
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 06:21:31 PMQuote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 06:16:54 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 05:50:21 PMQuote from: SectorZ on February 16, 2025, 05:24:05 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
It should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
Not to mention "morally repugnant." Which is strange, because I don't even think its unethical. Businesses do this all of the time.
For example, a local ice cream shop has a grand opening where it offers free samples. Is it then "morally repugnant" to charge for the ice cream later?
If I go to an ice cream shop and get a free sample, I am under no delusion that it is a gift, they expect me to purchase something immediately after trying the sample, and they may not offer samples in the future if people decide to take advantage of it. With any social media, the assumption of millions of users is that anything that is accessible for free will continue to be free in perpetuity.
So it's "morally repugnant" to get something free for a longer period of time???
I mean, would it be "morally repugnant" for the AARoads mods to charge $5 a month for this site??
Yes, it would be.
However, if they introduced an "AARoads Gold Forum" where users have to pay to access and get additional perks, but kept every other portion of the forum free to use, that would be fine.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 06:31:17 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 06:21:31 PMQuote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 06:16:54 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 05:50:21 PMQuote from: SectorZ on February 16, 2025, 05:24:05 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
It should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
Not to mention "morally repugnant." Which is strange, because I don't even think its unethical. Businesses do this all of the time.
For example, a local ice cream shop has a grand opening where it offers free samples. Is it then "morally repugnant" to charge for the ice cream later?
If I go to an ice cream shop and get a free sample, I am under no delusion that it is a gift, they expect me to purchase something immediately after trying the sample, and they may not offer samples in the future if people decide to take advantage of it. With any social media, the assumption of millions of users is that anything that is accessible for free will continue to be free in perpetuity.
So it's "morally repugnant" to get something free for a longer period of time???
I mean, would it be "morally repugnant" for the AARoads mods to charge $5 a month for this site??
Yes, it would be.
However, if they introduced an "AARoads Gold Forum" where users have to pay to access and get additional perks, but kept every other portion of the forum free to use, that would be fine.
That's ridiculous.
Annoying? Sure. Morally repugnant? Gimme a break...
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 05:46:27 PMMy thoughts on the matter have not changed. I do not respect companies who monetize content that was previously free.
All the power to ya my friend. You are under zero obligation to respect such a company at all. They won't see a dime of your money.
As to whether it's "morally repugnant", how does anyone have the energy to care? Corporations acting in their own best financial interest has been a truth of America for 248 years, 7 months, and 12 days, and will be a truth of America for double that no matter what adjectives we use on the internet. I cannot imagine paying this much headspace to something completely out of your control and with such low stakes. Nobody gets sick, injured, or killed as a result of this decision. This discourse is honestly stunning to see. Maybe eventually we'll decide to focus on how we can make the existing world better instead of fetishizing over a new world where everything is always morally right.
Paywalling is ridiculous enough as it is. The other day, the Los Angeles Times wanted me to subscribe to access an article written in 1992. Accessing information for niche historical interests is obviously not the same as accessing reporting on current events.
Considering the headache it has been to keep this forum active I'm surprised the idea of a subscription hasn't been floated. That said, I'm guessing that the AAroads Facebook page probably generates a decent chunk of engagement revenue. I have no idea if that is enough to offset maintaining this site?
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 06:14:42 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 06:13:07 PMI recall a lot of people thought Flickr going to a paid model for unlimited storage would tank the site. That page has been the only one of my storage mediums that hasn't tanked since 2017.
Gosh its almost like if companies have revenue for a service, that service can improve.
I don't disagree - but in case of reddit, as well as scientific journals, the value is created primarily by users - who are now invited to pay for the privilege of creating that value.
I don't know how to resolve this. Scientific publications are going through interesting hoops due to that...
I just want any personal cost to me to be minimal in all cases. Free is preferable.
Quote from: SectorZ on February 16, 2025, 05:24:05 PMIt should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
You're not sending me enough $100 bills, that's what!
(this is a joke)
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 16, 2025, 08:13:21 PMQuote from: SectorZ on February 16, 2025, 05:24:05 PMIt should be illegal for Reddit to charge its users? What the hell is going wrong with this forum?
You're not sending me enough $100 bills, that's what!
(this is a joke)
What is he charging you $100 for? :bigass:
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 06:14:42 PMGosh its almost like if companies have revenue for a service, that service can improve.
It can't, though.
If a service produces revenue, then the purpose of that service becomes creating revenue. So those controlling become incentivized to do what produces the most revenue, even if that is to the detriment of those using the service.
Those controlling a service with no profit motive have no incentive to do such things. Instead the only thing to focus on is making the service better.
You can see this when you compare Windows and Linux. In the last few versions Microsoft has forced AI on people, introduced ads in the OS itself, and made it a pain in the ass to install non-Microsoft software, all of which is intended to make Microsoft more money. In Linux, uh...well, we got a more secure windowing system, which is mildly annoying if people haven't fixed their programs to work correctly with it. Otherwise it's about the same as it's always been.
Money makes things worse.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 16, 2025, 08:19:40 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 06:14:42 PMGosh its almost like if companies have revenue for a service, that service can improve.
It can't, though.
If a service produces revenue, then the purpose of that service becomes creating revenue. So those controlling become incentivized to do what produces the most revenue, even if that is to the detriment of those using the service.
Those controlling a service with no profit motive have no incentive to do such things. Instead the only thing to focus on is making the service better.
You can see this when you compare Windows and Linux. In the last few versions Microsoft has forced AI on people, introduced ads in the OS itself, and made it a pain in the ass to install non-Microsoft software, all of which is intended to make Microsoft more money. In Linux, uh...well, we got a more secure windowing system, which is mildly annoying if people haven't fixed their programs to work correctly with it. Otherwise it's about the same as it's always been.
So your assertion is that, if a company charges money for a product, then it has no incentive to improve the product because the only incentive is now to make more money?
What if improving the product attracts more customers, and therefore increases revenue?
Both can happen.
Saying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:23:19 PMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 16, 2025, 08:19:40 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 06:14:42 PMGosh its almost like if companies have revenue for a service, that service can improve.
It can't, though.
If a service produces revenue, then the purpose of that service becomes creating revenue. So those controlling become incentivized to do what produces the most revenue, even if that is to the detriment of those using the service.
Those controlling a service with no profit motive have no incentive to do such things. Instead the only thing to focus on is making the service better.
You can see this when you compare Windows and Linux. In the last few versions Microsoft has forced AI on people, introduced ads in the OS itself, and made it a pain in the ass to install non-Microsoft software, all of which is intended to make Microsoft more money. In Linux, uh...well, we got a more secure windowing system, which is mildly annoying if people haven't fixed their programs to work correctly with it. Otherwise it's about the same as it's always been.
So your assertion is that, if a company charges money for a product, then it has no incentive to improve the product because the only incentive is now to make more money?
What if improving the product attracts more customers, and therefore increases revenue?
Both can happen.
Whoever maintains reddit, or any other free or subsidized service, still has to make ends meet
I love comparing public transportation in this sense. In Calgary it was over $3 before covid, but it was convenient and usable system. In our similar sized city it's $1.50, mostly subsidized by the state - and usefulness of that isn't great... Somehow serving more people and making more money do align in Calgary.
Quote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And for Reddit the cat has been long out of the bag. They are and have been a for profit company.
If past performance is anything to go by, I doubt more than 5-10% of the user base would pay for Reddit, unless a very low price is set. The inverted pyramid structure states:
With any account model, 5-10% of the total number of registered users create 90% of the posts.
Let's say another 1-2% of the users might be interested enough to purchase, because they lurk more than post. But a large share of that initial group probably would quit if a major change occurred. It's not that personal to just leave due to its large size. There's loads of "burner accounts" in that figure too, for semi-anonymous questions.
So would 5-7% of active users be enough to float the expenses without alienating the rest? And many of them might lose interest after a few more months, perhaps not seeing the same value as before?
That's the big question and why suddenly charging for a free service doesn't always work so well. The hopes are that most will pay for it, but usually it's a small percentage overall.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 09:10:43 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And for Reddit the cat has been long out of the bag. They are and have been a for profit company.
Adding to the absurdity, the user who holds that opinion is one who from his posts is clearly super into tech. Maybe he would learn something from one of these alternate ideal worlds people love to create. In a world where tech companies weren't allowed to make profit, he wouldn't even have an online platform like this to word vomit computer acronyms.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 03:04:06 PMQuote from: kalvado on February 16, 2025, 02:56:44 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 02:33:16 PMI mean is Reddit not a publicly traded company? The investors have the right to run it however they like, even it makes the product appreciably worse.
They have a great, but fragile asset. Question is how to make it to make it work without destroying the value. Paid premium features are one thing, dumping entire thing into AI training is another...
Isn't it more a case that Reddit is one of the last major forum-like websites left? My thought is that the format isn't mlong for this world anyways and won't need much of a push to completely tank.
That's part of the reason I'm so concerned. I have no intention of switching to chat (Discord).
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 03:16:51 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 02:24:53 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 08:46:18 AMYour first paragraph makes no sense from a business perspective. No one is going to sign up for a subscribtion Reddit-type site when it launches because it has no value. The users, and the interaction between them, is what provides the value. Setting up the site....attracting users and the value they bring...and then figuring out how exactly to monetize it IS the business plan.
Any taking away of still-used functionality (or putting free functionality behind a paywall) or making the user experience worse is morally repugnant and, quite frankly, should not be legal at all. I could see offering the service for free for a year or two and then charging, but such must be disclosed in advance so that people are not surprised (such would also prevent the world from changing in ways that would cause monetization to cause such problems for citizens).
Charging for something that used to be free should be illegal...because people are surprised?
I mean come on. Why do people want to use laws to outlaw things they don't like versus things that are actually detrimental to society?
No one is harmed in any material way if Reddit starts charging for their site. No one is defrauded or anything.
Reddit is practically an institution at this point. It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet. Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways. I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past. The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more. Where would I go? Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy. And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.
The world has built itself around a free Reddit. Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results. I do it all the time. It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.
Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 16, 2025, 05:50:21 PMNot to mention "morally repugnant." Which is strange, because I don't even think its unethical. Businesses do this all of the time.
For example, a local ice cream shop has a grand opening where it offers free samples. Is it then "morally repugnant" to charge for the ice cream later?
Businesses do a lot of things all the time that I don't like. In theory, public businesses were supposed to be for the common good of society, and long ago (like the 50s or 60s) businesses used to care about being "good corporate citizens", not just making money. It's time that we returned to that.
As for free samples, if something is labeled as such, it's just a sample. It's not an expectation that it will always be free. If you can't tell the difference between that and something that has been free for years with no indication of that changing, I don't know what to tell you.
Quote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 04:37:31 PMShould this logic extend to landlords? If an area becomes more desirable or the landlord does thorough renovations, should they not be able to raise rent for subsequent signings? How does this cooperate with inflation in general?
Ever hear of the movement for Good Cause Eviction laws? There are people who make those demands. I don't 100% agree with them, but my disagreement is more concern that making it difficult to evict people might cause apartments to all become glorified slums, not because of any fundamental disagreement with their intended goals.
Quote from: formulanone on February 16, 2025, 09:14:52 PMIf past performance is anything to go by, I doubt more than 5-10% of the user base would pay for Reddit, unless a very low price is set. The inverted pyramid structure states:
With any account model, 5-10% of the total number of registered users create 90% of the posts.
Let's say another 1-2% of the users might be interested enough to purchase, because they lurk more than post. But a large share of that initial group probably would quit if a major change occurred. It's not that personal to just leave due to its large size. There's loads of "burner accounts" in that figure too, for semi-anonymous questions.
So would 5-7% of active users be enough to float the expenses without alienating the rest? And many of them might lose interest after a few more months, perhaps not seeing the same value as before?
That's the big question and why suddenly charging for a free service doesn't always work so well. The hopes are that most will pay for it, but usually it's a small percentage overall.
That's a concern as well. Reddit already feels less active than it was before the blackout protests. Judging by how Lemmy flopped, I'm guessing everyone went to Discord. I know that's what happened to the subreddits for a couple online serials I follow (and their comment sections), one of which no longer exists at all.
Quote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And yet it's been borne out by experience in my personal life. I don't buy software. Ever.
Saying that merely introducing a profit motive will improves the quality of a product is one of the most blatantly incorrect, brainwashed-American opinions
I have ever heard in my life.
Quote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 09:19:33 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 09:10:43 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And for Reddit the cat has been long out of the bag. They are and have been a for profit company.
Adding to the absurdity, the user who holds that opinion is one who from his posts is clearly super into tech. Maybe he would learn something from one of these alternate ideal worlds people love to create. In a world where tech companies weren't allowed to make profit, he wouldn't even have an online platform like this to word vomit computer acronyms.
Open source software doesn't exist now?
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 10:11:58 PMOpen source software doesn't exist now?
I guess he thinks we paid for a copy of Simple Machines Forum...
I feel as though Reddit is one of these things I'm told is important only on this forum. I don't believe that I've encountered anyone in my regular life who has claimed to be a site user. If they are users, it doesn't come up in conversation. I guess that I don't really get who the platform is for?
I was surprised to see Reddit had $1.30 billion in revenue last year. A $484 million net loss doesn't seem to be an indicator of a healthy business model. I suspect this subscription idea is a move made out of desperation.
Quote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 04:37:31 PMShould this logic extend to landlords? If an area becomes more desirable or the landlord does thorough renovations, should they not be able to raise rent for subsequent signings? How does this cooperate with inflation in general?
Ever hear of the movement for Good Cause Eviction laws? There are people who make those demands. I don't 100% agree with them, but my disagreement is more concern that making it difficult to evict people might cause apartments to all become glorified slums, not because of any fundamental disagreement with their intended goals.
That doesn't answer the question.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 16, 2025, 10:09:31 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And yet it's been borne out by experience in my personal life. I don't buy software. Ever.
Saying that merely introducing a profit motive will improves the quality of a product is one of the most blatantly incorrect, brainwashed-American opinions I have ever heard in my life.
That's not what I said. I don't know how to be any clearer than I was. I really don't.
I was responding to your claim that profit incentives
never lead to improvement of the quality of a product.
You have 3 options: 1) agree that's a ridiculous statement, 2) deny you ever said that and explain what you actually did say, or 3) explain to me why profit makes up ZERO of the motivation for a corporation to improve its product. Any response that is not one of those three options is a waste of time.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 10:11:58 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 09:19:33 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 09:10:43 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And for Reddit the cat has been long out of the bag. They are and have been a for profit company.
Adding to the absurdity, the user who holds that opinion is one who from his posts is clearly super into tech. Maybe he would learn something from one of these alternate ideal worlds people love to create. In a world where tech companies weren't allowed to make profit, he wouldn't even have an online platform like this to word vomit computer acronyms.
Open source software doesn't exist now?
I never said that. I don't know how my statement could have possibly implied that I am disregarding the existence of open source software. I don't know how you can reason that such open source software would exist in the first place in the absence of profit incentives. Please do explain how that would be the case.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 16, 2025, 10:13:01 PMQuote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 10:11:58 PMOpen source software doesn't exist now?
I guess he thinks we paid for a copy of Simple Machines Forum...
Speaking of users demanding things for free, when are we going to get the green roadgeek layout back? :-D
Quote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 11:17:44 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 04:37:31 PMShould this logic extend to landlords? If an area becomes more desirable or the landlord does thorough renovations, should they not be able to raise rent for subsequent signings? How does this cooperate with inflation in general?
Ever hear of the movement for Good Cause Eviction laws? There are people who make those demands. I don't 100% agree with them, but my disagreement is more concern that making it difficult to evict people might cause apartments to all become glorified slums, not because of any fundamental disagreement with their intended goals.
That doesn't answer the question.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 16, 2025, 10:09:31 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And yet it's been borne out by experience in my personal life. I don't buy software. Ever.
Saying that merely introducing a profit motive will improves the quality of a product is one of the most blatantly incorrect, brainwashed-American opinions I have ever heard in my life.
That's not what I said. I don't know how to be any clearer than I was. I really don't.
I was responding to your claim that profit incentives never lead to improvement of the quality of a product.
You have 3 options: 1) agree that's a ridiculous statement, 2) deny you ever said that and explain what you actually did say, or 3) explain to me why profit makes up ZERO of the motivation for a corporation to improve its product. Any response that is not one of those three options is a waste of time.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 10:11:58 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 09:19:33 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 09:10:43 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And for Reddit the cat has been long out of the bag. They are and have been a for profit company.
Adding to the absurdity, the user who holds that opinion is one who from his posts is clearly super into tech. Maybe he would learn something from one of these alternate ideal worlds people love to create. In a world where tech companies weren't allowed to make profit, he wouldn't even have an online platform like this to word vomit computer acronyms.
Open source software doesn't exist now?
I never said that. I don't know how my statement could have possibly implied that I am disregarding the existence of open source software. I don't know how you can reason that such open source software would exist in the first place in the absence of profit incentives. Please do explain how that would be the case.
I think the bolded text speaks for itself here.
Quote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 11:17:44 PMI was responding to your claim that profit incentives never lead to improvement of the quality of a product.
It's theoretically possible. It's pretty damn hard to find many examples of it in real life post-2010, though, especially in the tech sector. These days it's all about forced obsolescence and vendor lock-in.
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on February 16, 2025, 11:21:03 PMSpeaking of users demanding things for free, when are we going to get the green roadgeek layout back? :-D
When I stop forgetting that I need to actually finish the damn thing... :ded:
I'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
If you want a current product to remain free and have the company only charge for the new product, guess what - the company can easily just take away the free product. It'll reduce their expenses in the long run if they get rid of the freeloaders that won't move to the paid product. What are you going to do...boycott a site you had no interest in visiting in the first place? (Similar fashion - people who say they'll boycott a store that doesn't even exist in their area. I don't think the company cares all that much, but thanks for the free advertising for mentioning the business anyway.)
Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people
don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything
must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
It amazes me that you think this is a "relatively recent phenomenon."
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 05:14:17 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
It amazes me that you think this is a "relatively recent phenomenon."
I'm sure Steve Huffman is grateful for your support.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
Fair enough, everything does not have to be a business, but if AARoads acquired a million users, it would need to defray those server costs somehow. We're probably at 1% of that, with a mere 300-400 regularly-contributing visitors.
Naturally, I can't quite imagine that many users joining, unless every mapping program also went to a paid model, forcing many to ask us for directions...
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 10:26:08 PMI feel as though Reddit is one of these things I'm told is important only on this forum. I don't believe that I've encountered anyone in my regular life who has claimed to be a site user. If they are users, it doesn't come up in conversation. I guess that I don't really get who the platform is for?
I was surprised to see Reddit had $1.30 billion in revenue last year. A $484 million net loss doesn't seem to be an indicator of a healthy business model. I suspect this subscription idea is a move made out of desperation.
People who want to discuss things with other internet users who don't want to use Discord and don't have access to forums like this one. It's the best place to go if you want to discuss certain fandoms, for instance. I also regularly check the local subs for Albany and Rochester (in fact, I'm finding that Reddit is a better source of local news than the local TV stations these days, which is scary). I've even found that r/Politics is taking an increasing percentage of my time given recent chaos.
Quote from: formulanone on February 17, 2025, 06:08:14 AMFair enough, everything does not have to be a business, but if AARoads acquired a million users, it would need to defray those server costs somehow. We're probably at 1% of that, with a mere 300-400 regularly-contributing visitors.
Naturally, I can't quite imagine that many users joining, unless every mapping program also went to a paid model, forcing many to ask us for directions...
Of course, part of what makes AARoads what it is, is that it doesn't
have a million users. If it did, I probably wouldn't find it very enjoyable. I don't really care for many of the million-user social media platforms. The only way to manage such a thing is by bringing in automated rule enforcement. I'm aware some people think I totally suck as an admin, but at least you can yell at me when I fuck something up, and sometimes I'll change my mind about stuff as a result. It's a lot harder to hold corporate social media accountable when a great deal of the moderation is done by computer programs.
What would probably be the most sustainable for the communities and users of Reddit would be if they broke off onto independently run and hosted forums like this one. The problem is that it's very hard to get a userbase to go from a big brand name site to an independent site. I don't know if it's inertia or marketing spend or what but people get too attached to the huge brand names and it's hard to get them to quit the habit. Hell, AARoads Wiki has been around for upwards of a year and we still haven't got people on this site to quit linking to Wikipedia despite the fact that the road articles there are no longer maintained.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 05:23:51 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 05:14:17 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
It amazes me that you think this is a "relatively recent phenomenon."
I'm sure Steve Huffman is grateful for your support.
I have no idea who that is.
Quote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMReddit is practically an institution at this point. It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet. Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways. I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past. The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more. Where would I go? Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy. And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.
The world has built itself around a free Reddit. Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results. I do it all the time. It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.
Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.
Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.
But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 08:43:06 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 05:23:51 AMI'm sure Steve Huffman is grateful for your support.
I have no idea who that is.
See the first post in this thread
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet:
The quote in the OP says a "new type of subreddit" would be paywalled. This means that existing subreddits, if they could at all, would consciously have to want to switch to paywalled to do so, and I would imagine the vast majority would choose not to.
Quote from: formulanone on February 17, 2025, 06:08:14 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
Fair enough, everything does not have to be a business, but if AARoads acquired a million users, it would need to defray those server costs somehow. We're probably at 1% of that, with a mere 300-400 regularly-contributing visitors.
Naturally, I can't quite imagine that many users joining, unless every mapping program also went to a paid model, forcing many to ask us for directions...
Quote from: vdeane on February 17, 2025, 06:52:22 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 10:26:08 PMI feel as though Reddit is one of these things I'm told is important only on this forum. I don't believe that I've encountered anyone in my regular life who has claimed to be a site user. If they are users, it doesn't come up in conversation. I guess that I don't really get who the platform is for?
I was surprised to see Reddit had $1.30 billion in revenue last year. A $484 million net loss doesn't seem to be an indicator of a healthy business model. I suspect this subscription idea is a move made out of desperation.
People who want to discuss things with other internet users who don't want to use Discord and don't have access to forums like this one. It's the best place to go if you want to discuss certain fandoms, for instance. I also regularly check the local subs for Albany and Rochester (in fact, I'm finding that Reddit is a better source of local news than the local TV stations these days, which is scary). I've even found that r/Politics is taking an increasing percentage of my time given recent chaos.
Bad time to point out that I don't use Discord either? I missed out on that whole scene when the forum and RoadwayWiz chats moved to there.
There was a chat started by RoadwayWiz during the early COVID times that morphed into a general road group chat. There was something about chats being logged that people didn't like on Facebook and Discord did it different?
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 06:57:17 AMQuote from: formulanone on February 17, 2025, 06:08:14 AMFair enough, everything does not have to be a business, but if AARoads acquired a million users, it would need to defray those server costs somehow. We're probably at 1% of that, with a mere 300-400 regularly-contributing visitors.
Naturally, I can't quite imagine that many users joining, unless every mapping program also went to a paid model, forcing many to ask us for directions...
Of course, part of what makes AARoads what it is, is that it doesn't have a million users. If it did, I probably wouldn't find it very enjoyable. I don't really care for many of the million-user social media platforms. The only way to manage such a thing is by bringing in automated rule enforcement. I'm aware some people think I totally suck as an admin, but at least you can yell at me when I fuck something up, and sometimes I'll change my mind about stuff as a result. It's a lot harder to hold corporate social media accountable when a great deal of the moderation is done by computer programs.
What would probably be the most sustainable for the communities and users of Reddit would be if they broke off onto independently run and hosted forums like this one. The problem is that it's very hard to get a userbase to go from a big brand name site to an independent site. I don't know if it's inertia or marketing spend or what but people get too attached to the huge brand names and it's hard to get them to quit the habit. Hell, AARoads Wiki has been around for upwards of a year and we still haven't got people on this site to quit linking to Wikipedia despite the fact that the road articles there are no longer maintained.
The other thing is the scale and reliability of a big data center. This forum was down for a few days, and it was - oh, ok, shit happens. A day of reddit offline would make it to CNN headlines.
Cost is another thing. As far as I understand, cost of running this one is absorbed by someone - hard to do that with a big data center
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
Never said it had to be operated as a business. But it can also be operated closer to a non-profit, or just a way to defeat costs.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 17, 2025, 09:35:32 AMQuote from: formulanone on February 17, 2025, 06:08:14 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
Fair enough, everything does not have to be a business, but if AARoads acquired a million users, it would need to defray those server costs somehow. We're probably at 1% of that, with a mere 300-400 regularly-contributing visitors.
Naturally, I can't quite imagine that many users joining, unless every mapping program also went to a paid model, forcing many to ask us for directions...
Quote from: vdeane on February 17, 2025, 06:52:22 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 10:26:08 PMI feel as though Reddit is one of these things I'm told is important only on this forum. I don't believe that I've encountered anyone in my regular life who has claimed to be a site user. If they are users, it doesn't come up in conversation. I guess that I don't really get who the platform is for?
I was surprised to see Reddit had $1.30 billion in revenue last year. A $484 million net loss doesn't seem to be an indicator of a healthy business model. I suspect this subscription idea is a move made out of desperation.
People who want to discuss things with other internet users who don't want to use Discord and don't have access to forums like this one. It's the best place to go if you want to discuss certain fandoms, for instance. I also regularly check the local subs for Albany and Rochester (in fact, I'm finding that Reddit is a better source of local news than the local TV stations these days, which is scary). I've even found that r/Politics is taking an increasing percentage of my time given recent chaos.
Bad time to point out that I don't use Discord either? I missed out on that whole scene when the forum and RoadwayWiz chats moved to there.
You haven't missed anything.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 11:31:33 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 11:17:44 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 04:37:31 PMShould this logic extend to landlords? If an area becomes more desirable or the landlord does thorough renovations, should they not be able to raise rent for subsequent signings? How does this cooperate with inflation in general?
Ever hear of the movement for Good Cause Eviction laws? There are people who make those demands. I don't 100% agree with them, but my disagreement is more concern that making it difficult to evict people might cause apartments to all become glorified slums, not because of any fundamental disagreement with their intended goals.
That doesn't answer the question.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 16, 2025, 10:09:31 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And yet it's been borne out by experience in my personal life. I don't buy software. Ever.
Saying that merely introducing a profit motive will improves the quality of a product is one of the most blatantly incorrect, brainwashed-American opinions I have ever heard in my life.
That's not what I said. I don't know how to be any clearer than I was. I really don't.
I was responding to your claim that profit incentives never lead to improvement of the quality of a product.
You have 3 options: 1) agree that's a ridiculous statement, 2) deny you ever said that and explain what you actually did say, or 3) explain to me why profit makes up ZERO of the motivation for a corporation to improve its product. Any response that is not one of those three options is a waste of time.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 10:11:58 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 09:19:33 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 09:10:43 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 16, 2025, 08:56:38 PMSaying that profit - specifically, the potential to make more of it - will never improve the quality of a product (if that is indeed what you mean by "why doesn't it then?") is fucking NUTS. Like one of the worst, most blatantly incorrect opinions I have heard in my life.
And for Reddit the cat has been long out of the bag. They are and have been a for profit company.
Adding to the absurdity, the user who holds that opinion is one who from his posts is clearly super into tech. Maybe he would learn something from one of these alternate ideal worlds people love to create. In a world where tech companies weren't allowed to make profit, he wouldn't even have an online platform like this to word vomit computer acronyms.
Open source software doesn't exist now?
I never said that. I don't know how my statement could have possibly implied that I am disregarding the existence of open source software. I don't know how you can reason that such open source software would exist in the first place in the absence of profit incentives. Please do explain how that would be the case.
I think the bolded text speaks for itself here.
Do you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?
Quote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 10:17:30 AMDo you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?
Scott5114 mentioned 2010 as a turning point. I agree with this. There were significant technological advances up to 2010. After that, not so much. The only differences I see between my first computer, a 2010 MacBook Pro, and my current one (2023) are that my current one has 500 GB of memory instead of 128 GB, and Python runs twice as fast likely due to the switch from Intel to Apple silicon. That's it.
My 2016 phone (original SE) and current phone (iPhone 13, bought in 2023) differ only in that my current phone has 4× more memory and zooming in the camera truly zooms in rather than decreasing the number of pixels while keeping it at the same resolution as my old phone did.
(I can't compare lifespan; I only have one data point. For my computers, 2010-2016 died naturally, and 2016-2019 and 2019-2023 were water damaged so it wasn't a "natural" lifespan. My first phone never died but was using half of its 16 GB memory for the system itself plus battery health was low, which is why I replaced it.)
I used to participate in a different online forum, which was operated by a hobbyist in his spare time for free. Eventually, they needed to offset the costs of running the forum. Pretty much none of the users wanted to pay for it. Around the same time, the webmaster died. The site closed down, never to be replaced with anything like it. It had around 20,000 users by the end of its life, and nothing remains.
If this site needed to institute a paid subscription, then I'd understand. That doesn't necessarily mean I'd find its value to be worth the price demanded, but I certainly shouldn't think it unethical. I understand that things have a non-zero cost, and I don't expect hobbyists to maintain everything I use in perpetuity out of their own pocket.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 16, 2025, 06:43:44 PMPaywalling is ridiculous enough as it is. The other day, the Los Angeles Times wanted me to subscribe to access an article written in 1992.
Honestly, that makes more sense to me than charging for current news. That article, which is no longer news, is taking up space on their server.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 03:04:06 PMIsn't it more a case that Reddit is one of the last major forum-like websites left? My thought is that the format isn't mlong for this world anyways and won't need much of a push to completely tank.
This.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 10:26:08 PMI don't believe that I've encountered anyone in my regular life who has claimed to be a site user. If they are users, it doesn't come up in conversation. I guess that I don't really get who the platform is for?
In my opinion, Reddit's best use is to answer questions like "Recommendations for an inexpensive vacuum cleaner?" or "Where to find a cute plus-size swimsuit for large breasted woman?". It's where to find the opinions of real life normal people.
Quote from: kphoger on February 17, 2025, 10:43:45 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 03:04:06 PMIsn't it more a case that Reddit is one of the last major forum-like websites left? My thought is that the format isn't mlong for this world anyways and won't need much of a push to completely tank.
This.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 16, 2025, 10:26:08 PMI don't believe that I've encountered anyone in my regular life who has claimed to be a site user. If they are users, it doesn't come up in conversation. I guess that I don't really get who the platform is for?
In my opinion, Reddit's best use is to answer questions like "Recommendations for an inexpensive vacuum cleaner?" or "Where to find a cute plus-size swimsuit for large breasted woman?". It's where to find the opinions of real life normal people.
Heh, I'll have to keep that mind when we get back state side. I have a couple dying appliances that are going to need to be two replaced soon.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 17, 2025, 10:46:02 AMHeh, I'll have to keep that mind when we get back state side. I have a couple dying appliances that are going to need to be two replaced soon.
My general approach is to read all the comments on several threads, then see which product names pop up the most frequently.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 12:29:33 AMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:14:12 AMI'm going to guess that most people that want something to remain free forever has never operated a business.
It can also be that people don't want some things operated as a business to begin with.
Nobody is clamoring for AARoads Inc. to make an IPO.
The apparent belief that absolutely everything must be a profit-oriented business, and the apparent tunnel vision some people have that precludes seeing possibilities outside of that, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it's not a good one.
But it can also be operated closer to a non-profit, or just a way to recoup costs. No need to becomes millionaires (although it'll be nice).
Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:42:12 PMBut it can also be operated closer to a non-profit, or just a way to recoup costs. No need to becomes millionaires (although it'll be nice).
My city has both for-profit and non-profit hospitals, but that doesn't make one of them free to use.
Quote from: kphoger on February 17, 2025, 12:44:28 PMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:42:12 PMBut it can also be operated closer to a non-profit, or just a way to recoup costs. No need to becomes millionaires (although it'll be nice).
My city has both for-profit and non-profit hospitals, but that doesn't make one of them free to use.
I think you missed my point going back to my original post.
Quote from: hotdogPi on February 17, 2025, 10:23:03 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 10:17:30 AMDo you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?
Scott5114 mentioned 2010 as a turning point. I agree with this. There were significant technological advances up to 2010. After that, not so much. The only differences I see between my first computer, a 2010 MacBook Pro, and my current one (2023) are that my current one has 500 GB of memory instead of 128 GB, and Python runs twice as fast likely due to the switch from Intel to Apple silicon. That's it.
Even if we accept it as the truth that no significant technological advances have been made since 2010 (absurd), that still doesn't disprove my point.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 01:13:17 PMI think you missed my point going back to my original post.
I wasn't disagreeing with you. I meant that as an obvious example of how non-profit does not equal free for the user/customer.
Quote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 10:17:30 AMDo you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?
Yes?
Most of the research that led to modern computing was done at universities (MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford primarily) funded by government grants, or by government agencies such as DARPA. Most of the software that undergirds modern computing (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python) is open source and was developed by volunteers. (Yes, even the AI stuff that has the industry's attention—that all runs on Python.) The companies just come in after the hard work is done and package it for sale.
To fluff the capitalists up on this just reveals an ignorance of history.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 12:42:12 PMBut it can also be operated closer to a non-profit, or just a way to recoup costs. No need to becomes millionaires (although it'll be nice).
Yes, that's true. One way we were considering funding the AARoads Wiki when we first stood it up was to have all of the admins chip in a few bucks a month. In the end, Alex was generous enough to pick up the tab.
That kind of funding model is much better for the userbase than a subscription model. Wikipedia's banner ads are annoying but they are able to successfully fund the hosting of English Wikipedia and thousands of lesser-known sister sites (and even the image hosting for the AARoads Wiki).
Quote from: kphoger on February 17, 2025, 10:43:45 AM"Where to find a cute plus-size swimsuit for large breasted woman?". It's where to find the opinions of real life normal people.
Normal people get called on to help large-breasted women pick out cute swimsuits often enough to have opinions on the best places to find them? Huh, I guess there are some perks to being normal, then...
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 08:35:44 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 10:17:30 AMDo you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?
Yes?
Most of the research that led to modern computing was done at universities (MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford primarily) funded by government grants, or by government agencies such as DARPA. Most of the software that undergirds modern computing (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python) is open source and was developed by volunteers. (Yes, even the AI stuff that has the industry's attention—that all runs on Python.) The companies just come in after the hard work is done and package it for sale.
To fluff the capitalists up on this just reveals an ignorance of history.
Were those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?
Quote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 08:48:05 PMWere those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?
Please learn what "open source" means before you continue this discussion.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 08:35:44 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 10:17:30 AMDo you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?
Yes?
Most of the research that led to modern computing was done at universities (MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford primarily) funded by government grants, or by government agencies such as DARPA. Most of the software that undergirds modern computing (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python) is open source and was developed by volunteers. (Yes, even the AI stuff that has the industry's attention—that all runs on Python.) The companies just come in after the hard work is done and package it for sale.
To fluff the capitalists up on this just reveals an ignorance of history.
Ironic.
For those that say Reddit users will pay, how many of us pay for Wikipedia?
It's like Groupon being known as restaurant heroin. Once people ate at a place for a discount, they would never pay more for the same thing. Then restaurants have to keep the Groupon offer going and never made a profit. The same rationale applies but in this case, the coupon is 100% off for Reddit.
Wikipedia might be free but you certainly pay a toll in the form of the weird bureaucracy that site has. That structure would probably collapse if editing requires a paid subscription. Then again, it probably would also tank the site completely in favor of free dedicated subject Wikis.
A toll of red tape that I don't see doesn't equate to less money in my pocket though.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 08:49:31 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 08:48:05 PMWere those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?
Please learn what "open source" means before you continue this discussion.
So the did companies exist before the programs, and essentially told people they could work for them for free, and that's the entirety of how those programs were developed?
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 17, 2025, 09:03:41 PMFor those that say Reddit users will pay, how many of us pay for Wikipedia?
It's like Groupon being known as restaurant heroin. Once people ate at a place for a discount, they would never pay more for the same thing. Then restaurants have to keep the Groupon offer going and never made a profit. The same rationale applies but in this case, the coupon is 100% off for Reddit.
I did donate to wiki a few times. Of course it was a donation, not a service fee.
I also bought premium subscription to some freemium sites as a gift. I rarely need advanced paid features, but giving it to someone else kills a few birds in one shot.
I am not sure if I would feel the same relaxed way paying for a monthly subscription
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 17, 2025, 09:08:55 PMA toll of red tape that I don't see doesn't equate to less money in my pocket though.
While true, you certainly get an unpleasant user experience out of it. From what others have indicated here that has only gotten worse with time. Wikipedia sure is big on asking for donations. If I'm paying I want a terms of use in my favor.
Quote from: kalvado on February 17, 2025, 09:13:20 PMQuote from: JayhawkCO on February 17, 2025, 09:03:41 PMFor those that say Reddit users will pay, how many of us pay for Wikipedia?
It's like Groupon being known as restaurant heroin. Once people ate at a place for a discount, they would never pay more for the same thing. Then restaurants have to keep the Groupon offer going and never made a profit. The same rationale applies but in this case, the coupon is 100% off for Reddit.
I did donate to wiki a few times. Of course it was a donation, not a service fee.
I also bought premium subscription to some freemium sites as a gift. I rarely need advanced paid features, but giving it to someone else kills a few birds in one shot.
I am not sure if I would feel the same relaxed way paying for a monthly subscription
The same reason some of us of a certain age might have paid for World Book/Encyclopedia Brittanica/etc. (or their parents did), had that information been on offer at home for free, no one would have spent the money. Cat has already been out of the bag, alas.
Quote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 09:10:54 PMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 08:49:31 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 08:48:05 PMWere those who had a major hand in developing those programs not given a stake in ownership of the companies? How did the companies come to exist? Who founded them? How did they acquire the rights to the technology to sell it? Was there any payment involved in that process?
Please learn what "open source" means before you continue this discussion.
So the did companies exist before the programs, and essentially told people they could work for them for free, and that's the entirety of how those programs were developed?
What? No.
Open-source code is code that is licensed to allow modification and redistribution. This is done for many reasons, but one overriding one is that if you get stuck, or if there's a bug you don't notice, someone else can fix it for you. Because you are legally in the clear to redistribute the code, you can then distribute the fixed version. Programmers like this because it makes it easy to get things done, which is what they are interested in. You don't have to waste time on the overhead of things like "well, I wrote lines 18-26, but James patched a bug on line 7, so we need to get his permission to publish this, and..."
(Why do people contribute to open-source software when not being paid to do so? Because it's fun. Because creating things is satisfying. Because they need a program to exist and are capable of writing it themselves instead of paying for it. Because if you intend to work as a programmer, having something like "I wrote the part of Firefox that handles date inputs" on your resume looks good. Because they have a job doing something tangentially related and this is a side project they don't want to put the effort into monetizing.)
Early on this was done by just releasing the code to the public domain or using a simple license that says "anyone can modify and distribute this". But of course if you find a code base that you are legally free and clear to redistribute, there is nothing stopping you from charging money from those you distribute it to. Companies would be formed to scoop up these existing open code bases, make a few changes, and then sell it as a new, incompatible, closed-source product.
Eventually the open source people wised up and tightened the licenses up so that any changes you make must also be licensed openly. Companies still attach to those code bases, but they have to make their money selling support—Red Hat sells more or less the same Linux you can download for free, but if anything goes wrong with it you can call in and have one of their techs help you fix it. That's appealing if you're a big corporation that can't afford to lose time when an important system goes kaput, but the free option is still available if you'd rather save the money and fix it yourself.
I stand corrected, the people responsible for the initial development and distribution of these systems were not motivated by profit. However that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 08:44:56 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMReddit is practically an institution at this point. It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet. Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways. I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past. The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more. Where would I go? Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy. And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.
The world has built itself around a free Reddit. Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results. I do it all the time. It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.
Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.
Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.
But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.
I think at this point it's coming down to the two of us having irreconcilably different fundamental beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, the function businesses play in society is to provide goods and services to citizens. Making money should be merely their reward for doing a good job at that, not their overriding purpose above all else. You clearly take a different view on that.
Quote from: hotdogPi on February 17, 2025, 09:02:12 AMI'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet:
The quote in the OP says a "new type of subreddit" would be paywalled. This means that existing subreddits, if they could at all, would consciously have to want to switch to paywalled to do so, and I would imagine the vast majority would choose not to.
I'm not sure I trust that it would remain as such and/or not end up affecting the user experience in other ways (such as user discussion migrating in some cases, drying up content on the existing free spaces, much like Discord dried up r/Parahumans and caused r/HereticalEdge to die completely).
Quote from: hotdogPi on February 17, 2025, 10:23:03 AMScott5114 mentioned 2010 as a turning point. I agree with this. There were significant technological advances up to 2010. After that, not so much. The only differences I see between my first computer, a 2010 MacBook Pro, and my current one (2023) are that my current one has 500 GB of memory instead of 128 GB, and Python runs twice as fast likely due to the switch from Intel to Apple silicon. That's it.
2010 is also around the time when I went from liking the direction mainstream technology was moving in and eagerly looking forward to and wanting to upgrade to new versions of Windows and what not and hating the direction the industry was moving in and migrating away from the mainstream products (Windows, Chrome, etc.) whenever they inevitably did something to piss me off and say "the line must be drawn here, this far, no farther".
Quote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 09:47:11 PMHowever that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.
It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 10:37:21 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 09:47:11 PMHowever that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.
It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...
Flaming Hot Cheetos increased market share and therefore profitability.
Quote from: hotdogPi on February 17, 2025, 10:23:03 AMScott5114 mentioned 2010 as a turning point. I agree with this. There were significant technological advances up to 2010. After that, not so much. The only differences I see between my first computer, a 2010 MacBook Pro, and my current one (2023) are that my current one has 500 GB of memory instead of 128 GB, and Python runs twice as fast likely due to the switch from Intel to Apple silicon. That's it.
Screen resolution better?
This is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 10:41:09 PMScreen resolution better?
I've been running at 1920x1080 since about 2010...
Quote from: Henry on February 17, 2025, 10:43:17 PMThis is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.
That rumor had several circulations over about a five year period.
Quote from: vdeane on February 17, 2025, 10:08:07 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 08:44:56 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMReddit is practically an institution at this point. It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet. Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways. I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past. The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more. Where would I go? Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy. And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.
The world has built itself around a free Reddit. Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results. I do it all the time. It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.
Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.
Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.
But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.
I think at this point it's coming down to the two of us having irreconcilably different fundamental beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, the function businesses play in society is to provide goods and services to citizens. Making money should be merely their reward for doing a good job at that, not their overriding purpose above all else. You clearly take a different view on that.
How the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?
The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 05:27:31 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 17, 2025, 10:08:07 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 08:44:56 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMReddit is practically an institution at this point. It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet. Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways. I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past. The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more. Where would I go? Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy. And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.
The world has built itself around a free Reddit. Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results. I do it all the time. It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.
Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.
Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.
But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.
I think at this point it's coming down to the two of us having irreconcilably different fundamental beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, the function businesses play in society is to provide goods and services to citizens. Making money should be merely their reward for doing a good job at that, not their overriding purpose above all else. You clearly take a different view on that.
How the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?
The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.
One of the jokes floating around is that a good programmer is not the one who wakes up thinking "my code would make a ton of money", but the one who wakes up to "my code would change the world". And frankly speaking reddit code did change the world...
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 10:37:21 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 09:47:11 PMHowever that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.
It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...
*Automobiles are more expensive, but they are also way better now than they ever have been. Safer, more reliable, more "gadgets," etc.
*Movie theatres cost more, but have better seating options, and the sound and picture is better than ever.
*Phones are way more expensive than ever, but they do a million times more than the cell phones of decades ago.
I could list a dozen more if you want me to.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 10:46:17 PMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 10:41:09 PMScreen resolution better?
I've been running at 1920x1080 since about 2010...
I don't want to think about having to go back to 1920×1080.
I like my screen real estate, and I like the way that Microsoft Flight Simulator looks with high-end graphics cards that have come onto the market. And the data-crunching and modeling I can do via my work computers... I'm doing stuff today that I could barely dream about (or had no realistic chance of getting a budget and time to do the work with the contemporary technology) 15 years ago.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 10:46:17 PMQuote from: jeffandnicole on February 17, 2025, 10:41:09 PMScreen resolution better?
I've been running at 1920x1080 since about 2010...
But what you're using doesn't mean ther hasn't been improvements. You're just choosing to use a feature you're comfortable with.
Quote from: Henry on February 17, 2025, 10:43:17 PMThis is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.
You're confusing a rumor with an actual proposal. Facebook never came up with the idea and never proposed such, so there was never a "stupid idea" to begin with. And this rumor has been in circulation since 2009, yet people still continue to believe it when their friends forward or post the same false information.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 17, 2025, 11:05:19 PMQuote from: Henry on February 17, 2025, 10:43:17 PMThis is just like the rumor that went around telling us that Facebook was going to charge its users to continue with its service. AFAIK, that was a stupid idea to begin with, and I'm glad it didn't come to pass. Hope the same will be true of this one too.
That rumor had several circulations over about a five year period.
I've thought charging people for terrible posts and comments might be enough to guarantee never needing advertisements again...
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 05:27:31 AMHow the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?
The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.
This isn't something I came up with recently to justify my position on Reddit. It's something I've believed for
years and just hasn't come up on the forum until now because it's usually most relevant in political discussions. As far as where the line is, it would probably be in practice more of a judgement call based on how a company is behaving. Are they being good corporate citizens with respect to their employees, their customers, their community, the environment, etc.? Or are they paying low wages, have poor working conditions, poor customer service, polluting their surroundings, etc.? Are cut costs over something obsolete, or something that's still being used by many people? Are cut costs needed to continue operating, or are they to pad the profits of shareholders? When they have a cash windfall, are they investing in the business, giving back to their workers, or using stock buy-backs to pump up their shareholder value?
There's enough obvious bad corporate behavior out there that I don't think anyone would be needing to go over anyone with a fine-toothed comb to differentiate any time soon; there are much bigger fish to fry than looking at non-obvious cases.
(incidentally, I also care far more about the possibility of having to be signed into an account to read Reddit than I do about paying for it)
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 08:46:07 AM*Automobiles are more expensive, but they are also way better now than they ever have been. Safer, more reliable, more "gadgets," etc.
*Movie theatres cost more, but have better seating options, and the sound and picture is better than ever.
*Phones are way more expensive than ever, but they do a million times more than the cell phones of decades ago.
I could list a dozen more if you want me to.
I'm curious if you're adjusting for inflation with these numbers, but to address the other end of the equation:
-While I would agree about cars if you're comparing to 50 years ago, I wouldn't for 10-15. Modern safety "features" are often more annoyances than anything else, I don't want to have to use a touchscreen or voice commands, I'd rather control the heat/AC myself rather than have the car guess what I want from a temperature setting, I don't want "gadgets", I don't want surveillance, I don't want data sent to data brokers and/or insurance companies, etc. My 2014 Civic is just about perfect and more or less what I want in a car.
-I'll give you the movie theaters. The negatives are more a societal problem of people not being quiet and not the fault of the theaters.
-Phones are a tricky one. My issues with them come down to what is essentially a fundamental part of what modern smart phones are. I don't like how "Apps" usurped mobile sites (although they are sometimes necessary, such as the RSA Token app I need to sign in to my work accounts when offsite) and I don't like how the phones usurped desktops and laptops. I also don't like how Apps act to scoop up data to be sold to who knows where. I don't like how they're clearly listening in on people even though developers say they don't. Again, probably more of a societal issue; while smartphones existed before the "App Store", they didn't take off until Apple made the store. My ideal smartphone would probably be the very first iPhone, except on modern cell networks and running Linux.
The domestic automotive market is over regulated and being choked by automakers only chasing high margin vehicles. I don't know how anyone can look at what has happened this decade and see it as a step in the right direction for consumers. You either get an expensive new car full of failure prone tech or overpay for something used from the previous two decades. Sure, there are some relatively cheap options like the Corolla I just got but they are in dying market segments.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 18, 2025, 01:01:09 PMThe domestic automotive market is over regulated and being choked by automakers only chasing high margin vehicles. I don't know how anyone can look at what has happened this decade and see it as a step in the right direction for consumers. You either get an expensive new car full of failure prone tech or overpay for something used from the previous two decades. Sure, there are some relatively cheap options like the Corolla I just got but they are in dying market segments.
It feels like a lot of companies kind of forgot that you don't need all high margin stuff if you just sell a shit ton of volume. 5 cars at 10% is way worse than 50 cars at 1%.
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 18, 2025, 01:06:26 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 18, 2025, 01:01:09 PMThe domestic automotive market is over regulated and being choked by automakers only chasing high margin vehicles. I don't know how anyone can look at what has happened this decade and see it as a step in the right direction for consumers. You either get an expensive new car full of failure prone tech or overpay for something used from the previous two decades. Sure, there are some relatively cheap options like the Corolla I just got but they are in dying market segments.
It feels like a lot of companies kind of forgot that you don't need all high margin stuff if you just sell a shit ton of volume. 5 cars at 10% is way worse than 50 cars at 1%.
Especially the domestic automakers. Yeah they lagged behind the Japanese automakers for decades on high volume small cars, but at least they offered something. The trade off was that the domestic cars usually were a little cheaper up front and had more parts availability. Now they pretty much abandoned all those vehicles and customers who bought them.
Some familiar names like Corolla, Camry, Sentra, Accord and Civic were all the Top 25 for domestic sales last year. All of those come from Japanese manufacturers.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g60385784/bestselling-cars-2024/
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 18, 2025, 01:11:38 PMQuote from: JayhawkCO on February 18, 2025, 01:06:26 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 18, 2025, 01:01:09 PMThe domestic automotive market is over regulated and being choked by automakers only chasing high margin vehicles. I don't know how anyone can look at what has happened this decade and see it as a step in the right direction for consumers. You either get an expensive new car full of failure prone tech or overpay for something used from the previous two decades. Sure, there are some relatively cheap options like the Corolla I just got but they are in dying market segments.
It feels like a lot of companies kind of forgot that you don't need all high margin stuff if you just sell a shit ton of volume. 5 cars at 10% is way worse than 50 cars at 1%.
Especially the domestic automakers. Yeah they lagged behind the Japanese automakers for decades on high volume small cars, but at least they offered something. The trade off was that the domestic cars usually were a little cheaper up front and had more parts availability. Now they pretty much abandoned all those vehicles and customers who bought them.
Some familiar names like Corolla, Camry, Sentra, Accord and Civic were all the Top 25 for domestic sales last year. All of those come from Japanese manufacturers.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g60385784/bestselling-cars-2024/
And to specify why I said 5@10% is worse than 50@1%, it's because you remove the demand from your competitors while making the same amount of money.
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 18, 2025, 01:06:26 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 18, 2025, 01:01:09 PMThe domestic automotive market is over regulated and being choked by automakers only chasing high margin vehicles. I don't know how anyone can look at what has happened this decade and see it as a step in the right direction for consumers. You either get an expensive new car full of failure prone tech or overpay for something used from the previous two decades. Sure, there are some relatively cheap options like the Corolla I just got but they are in dying market segments.
It feels like a lot of companies kind of forgot that you don't need all high margin stuff if you just sell a shit ton of volume. 5 cars at 10% is way worse than 50 cars at 1%.
There's a lot more paperwork involved to try to chase 1% margins. 1% profit on a $40,000 vehicle is 400.00; that doesn't really cover much in the way of operating expenses and floorplans (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/floor-planning.asp), let alone giving anyone a meaningful cut of the sales.
And if you're going to actually sell that many vehicles, you need the additional personnel to deal with preparation and sales taking 2-8 hours of time from "just looking" to "say bye-bye to your trade".
In my industry, 5% is seen as a low margin for that reason.
Quote from: formulanone on February 18, 2025, 01:29:33 PMQuote from: JayhawkCO on February 18, 2025, 01:06:26 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 18, 2025, 01:01:09 PMThe domestic automotive market is over regulated and being choked by automakers only chasing high margin vehicles. I don't know how anyone can look at what has happened this decade and see it as a step in the right direction for consumers. You either get an expensive new car full of failure prone tech or overpay for something used from the previous two decades. Sure, there are some relatively cheap options like the Corolla I just got but they are in dying market segments.
It feels like a lot of companies kind of forgot that you don't need all high margin stuff if you just sell a shit ton of volume. 5 cars at 10% is way worse than 50 cars at 1%.
There's a lot more paperwork involved to try to chase 1% margins. 1% profit on a $40,000 vehicle is 400.00; that doesn't really cover much in the way of operating expenses and floorplans (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/floor-planning.asp), let alone giving anyone a meaningful cut of the sales.
And if you're going to actually sell that many vehicles, you need the additional personnel to deal with preparation and sales taking 2-8 hours of time from "just looking" to "say bye-bye to your trade".
In my industry, 5% is seen as a low margin for that reason.
See my comment right above yours to help me to explain my point of view.
And for the record, I'm well aware the margins are greater than 1% (or 10% for that matter). I was just demonstrating my opinion with random numbers.
Quote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 12:42:23 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 05:27:31 AMHow the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?
The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.
This isn't something I came up with recently to justify my position on Reddit. It's something I've believed for years and just hasn't come up on the forum until now because it's usually most relevant in political discussions. As far as where the line is, it would probably be in practice more of a judgement call based on how a company is behaving. Are they being good corporate citizens with respect to their employees, their customers, their community, the environment, etc.? Or are they paying low wages, have poor working conditions, poor customer service, polluting their surroundings, etc.? Are cut costs over something obsolete, or something that's still being used by many people? Are cut costs needed to continue operating, or are they to pad the profits of shareholders? When they have a cash windfall, are they investing in the business, giving back to their workers, or using stock buy-backs to pump up their shareholder value?
There's enough obvious bad corporate behavior out there that I don't think anyone would be needing to go over anyone with a fine-toothed comb to differentiate any time soon; there are much bigger fish to fry than looking at non-obvious cases.
(incidentally, I also care far more about the possibility of having to be signed into an account to read Reddit than I do about paying for it)
With such an approach... Be prepared to submit for a background and credit check before being allowed to shop for groceries in any given store. A separate one for each store. Add fingerprinting for each restaurant order.
Quote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 12:42:23 PMThis isn't something I came up with recently to justify my position on Reddit. It's something I've believed for years and just hasn't come up on the forum until now because it's usually most relevant in political discussions. As far as where the line is, it would probably be in practice more of a judgement call based on how a company is behaving. Are they being good corporate citizens with respect to their employees, their customers, their community, the environment, etc.? Or are they paying low wages, have poor working conditions, poor customer service, polluting their surroundings, etc.? Are cut costs over something obsolete, or something that's still being used by many people? Are cut costs needed to continue operating, or are they to pad the profits of shareholders? When they have a cash windfall, are they investing in the business, giving back to their workers, or using stock buy-backs to pump up their shareholder value?
So what if Reddit was doing everything positive that you outline above...and still creates a paywall?
Quote from: kphoger on February 17, 2025, 10:43:45 AM"Where to find a cute plus-size swimsuit for large breasted woman?". It's where to find the opinions of real life normal people.
Quote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 08:46:59 PMNormal people get called on to help large-breasted women pick out cute swimsuits often enough to have opinions on the best places to find them? Huh, I guess there are some perks to being normal, then...
Huh? No, I mean it's a place that a large-breasted woman can get recommendations from other normal large-breasted women. That is to say, not an online article written by who-know-who ranking the best swimsuits for large-breasted women, but the opinions of normal women who actually buy and wear swimsuits.
Maybe you thought I was saying large-breasted women are not normal people. I wasn't saying that at all.
Quote from: vdeane on February 17, 2025, 10:08:07 PMI think at this point it's coming down to the two of us having irreconcilably different fundamental beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, the function businesses play in society is to provide goods and services to citizens. Making money should be merely their reward for doing a good job at that, not their overriding purpose above all else. You clearly take a different view on that.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 05:27:31 AMHow the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?
I agree, to an extent. While companies certainly might and do chase the almighty dollar over providing a valuable service to the community, I'd say it's quite common for a company do have both goals at the same time. I'd say it's quite common for a company to want both well-treated employees and also high profits.
Just spit-balling, but maybe the function
workers play in society is to provide goods and services to the other citizens—whereas the function
companies play in society is to provide those citizens with a stable environment in which to fulfil that role. And, when it comes to a company, stability and profit are inherently linked.
Quote from: kalvado on February 18, 2025, 01:56:02 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 12:42:23 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 05:27:31 AMHow the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?
The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.
This isn't something I came up with recently to justify my position on Reddit. It's something I've believed for years and just hasn't come up on the forum until now because it's usually most relevant in political discussions. As far as where the line is, it would probably be in practice more of a judgement call based on how a company is behaving. Are they being good corporate citizens with respect to their employees, their customers, their community, the environment, etc.? Or are they paying low wages, have poor working conditions, poor customer service, polluting their surroundings, etc.? Are cut costs over something obsolete, or something that's still being used by many people? Are cut costs needed to continue operating, or are they to pad the profits of shareholders? When they have a cash windfall, are they investing in the business, giving back to their workers, or using stock buy-backs to pump up their shareholder value?
There's enough obvious bad corporate behavior out there that I don't think anyone would be needing to go over anyone with a fine-toothed comb to differentiate any time soon; there are much bigger fish to fry than looking at non-obvious cases.
(incidentally, I also care far more about the possibility of having to be signed into an account to read Reddit than I do about paying for it)
With such an approach... Be prepared to submit for a background and credit check before being allowed to shop for groceries in any given store. A separate one for each store. Add fingerprinting for each restaurant order.
Why?
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 01:59:43 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 12:42:23 PMThis isn't something I came up with recently to justify my position on Reddit. It's something I've believed for years and just hasn't come up on the forum until now because it's usually most relevant in political discussions. As far as where the line is, it would probably be in practice more of a judgement call based on how a company is behaving. Are they being good corporate citizens with respect to their employees, their customers, their community, the environment, etc.? Or are they paying low wages, have poor working conditions, poor customer service, polluting their surroundings, etc.? Are cut costs over something obsolete, or something that's still being used by many people? Are cut costs needed to continue operating, or are they to pad the profits of shareholders? When they have a cash windfall, are they investing in the business, giving back to their workers, or using stock buy-backs to pump up their shareholder value?
So what if Reddit was doing everything positive that you outline above...and still creates a paywall?
That would still be taking something that's currently free, and used by millions of people, and making it pay, and not only that, degrading the experience of citizens by making it so that you need to be signed into an account to browse, so it would be no bueno. Not budging on that. If they wanted to monetize in that way, they should have told everyone from the get-go (even if they were free then, there should have been a prominent notice of "service is free for X time, after which we will charge $Y").
Didn't we go over this already? I feel like a broken record.
Quote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 09:19:48 PMQuote from: kalvado on February 18, 2025, 01:56:02 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 12:42:23 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 05:27:31 AMHow the heck can you possibly draw a distinction between these two ideas? Where does the point between "reward for doing a good job" and "overriding purpose above all else" exist?
The fact is that you just don't want to pay for Reddit and your trying to build a moral / philosophical argument against a potential paywall, but you just aren't being logical.
This isn't something I came up with recently to justify my position on Reddit. It's something I've believed for years and just hasn't come up on the forum until now because it's usually most relevant in political discussions. As far as where the line is, it would probably be in practice more of a judgement call based on how a company is behaving. Are they being good corporate citizens with respect to their employees, their customers, their community, the environment, etc.? Or are they paying low wages, have poor working conditions, poor customer service, polluting their surroundings, etc.? Are cut costs over something obsolete, or something that's still being used by many people? Are cut costs needed to continue operating, or are they to pad the profits of shareholders? When they have a cash windfall, are they investing in the business, giving back to their workers, or using stock buy-backs to pump up their shareholder value?
There's enough obvious bad corporate behavior out there that I don't think anyone would be needing to go over anyone with a fine-toothed comb to differentiate any time soon; there are much bigger fish to fry than looking at non-obvious cases.
(incidentally, I also care far more about the possibility of having to be signed into an account to read Reddit than I do about paying for it)
With such an approach... Be prepared to submit for a background and credit check before being allowed to shop for groceries in any given store. A separate one for each store. Add fingerprinting for each restaurant order.
Why?
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 01:59:43 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 12:42:23 PMThis isn't something I came up with recently to justify my position on Reddit. It's something I've believed for years and just hasn't come up on the forum until now because it's usually most relevant in political discussions. As far as where the line is, it would probably be in practice more of a judgement call based on how a company is behaving. Are they being good corporate citizens with respect to their employees, their customers, their community, the environment, etc.? Or are they paying low wages, have poor working conditions, poor customer service, polluting their surroundings, etc.? Are cut costs over something obsolete, or something that's still being used by many people? Are cut costs needed to continue operating, or are they to pad the profits of shareholders? When they have a cash windfall, are they investing in the business, giving back to their workers, or using stock buy-backs to pump up their shareholder value?
So what if Reddit was doing everything positive that you outline above...and still creates a paywall?
That would still be taking something that's currently free, and used by millions of people, and making it pay, and not only that, degrading the experience of citizens by making it so that you need to be signed into an account to browse, so it would be no bueno. Not budging on that. If they wanted to monetize in that way, they should have told everyone from the get-go (even if they were free then, there should have been a prominent notice of "service is free for X time, after which we will charge $Y").
Didn't we go over this already? I feel like a broken record.
Well you brought up a ton of stuff in your paragraph above...but somehow forgot to include "can't charge for something that once was free." lol.
I take it that logic really isn't a strong suit of yours.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 10:21:30 PMWell you brought up a ton of stuff in your paragraph above...but somehow forgot to include "can't charge for something that once was free." lol.
I take it that logic really isn't a strong suit of yours.
So I have to restate everything I previously said whenever I reply to you? What the actual fuck?
Now you're just being deliberately obtuse.
Quote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMSo I have to restate everything I previously said whenever I reply to you? What the actual fuck?
The longer the quote, the happier the goat!
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 08:44:56 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMReddit is practically an institution at this point. It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet. Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways. I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past. The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more. Where would I go? Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy. And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.
The world has built itself around a free Reddit. Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results. I do it all the time. It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.
Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.
Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.
But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.
Really? I don't participate in Reddit but it comes up as Google results a lot. I found the results there often unreliable - fringe minority opinion not marked as such, or outdated or just plain wrong. No way will I pay to read results there.
Quote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 10:17:30 AMDo you think computers would have ever reached a level of complexity and efficiency even close to where they are now if the companies developing them couldn't make profit?
A lot of the early work on computers was done under Department of Defense contracts that allowed the companies to make money even if their lines of research and development came to nothing. Profits in the commercial world came much later.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 08:46:07 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 10:37:21 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 09:47:11 PMHowever that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.
It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...
*Automobiles are more expensive, but they are also way better now than they ever have been. Safer, more reliable, more "gadgets," etc.
*Movie theatres cost more, but have better seating options, and the sound and picture is better than ever.
*Phones are way more expensive than ever, but they do a million times more than the cell phones of decades ago.
I could list a dozen more if you want me to.
I would argue with all of those.
Cars reached their pinacle with the Japanese late 1990s models, for economy, safety, and reliability. Later models feature fancy electronics nobody should be looking at while they are operating a motor vehicle, and make the car as a whole less reliable. In addition to mechanical sources of breakdown, now all the electronics may make key features not work - like one of my car's electronics modules failed one, which didn't strand me exactly but the headlights wouldn't come on and it was night and I really wanted to get home. And later, of course, the dealer could not replicate the problem so I'll never know when it might happen again.
Movies that appeal to people over 16 don't even seem to be made anymore. Massive special effects explosions are apparently more reliable profit centers than good writers.
Phone have a lot of fancy features but fail on reliability. They are deliberately made to smash if dropped from a hand onto a paved surface, in a triumph of planned obsolescence. There are cases that can protect them - but they make an already bulky thing to carry around even more bulky, and why doesn't the phone have a case that protects it included? You have to buy a new one for every phone, for more planned obsolescence. They still suck up battery charges in a matter of hours, and reception outside cities or during times of stress like natural disasters you may not be able to get through at all. And they are still an Orwellian dream for tracking where everyone is and what they're doing.
Quote from: kkt on February 19, 2025, 02:01:59 AMMovies that appeal to people over 16 don't even seem to be made anymore. Massive special effects explosions are apparently more reliable profit centers than good writers.
What a ridiculous statement. Seems to reflect willful ignorance of the broader availability of movies nowadays rather than reality. Simply because action movies are bringing in the big bucks doesn't mean there aren't movies being produced for "adults." More movies are being produced now than there ever were yesteryear, especially through streaming.
Quote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMQuote from: kalvadoWith such an approach... Be prepared to submit for a background and credit check before being allowed to shop for groceries in any given store. A separate one for each store. Add fingerprinting for each restaurant order.
Why?
If you care that much about the moral aspect of business, it would only be responsible for the business to care about the morality of the customer. Since there is no social score system yet, using credit rating and criminal record may be appropriate. Actually banks are legally turning down customers with low credit rating, so it should be somewhat legal.
A minimum of 720 to shop Trader Joe and 700 for Hannaford should be about right, maybe? Otherwise go to Walmart!
PS happy goat have eaten quote format!
Quote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 08:08:15 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMQuote from: kalvadoWith such an approach... Be prepared to submit for a background and credit check before being allowed to shop for groceries in any given store. A separate one for each store. Add fingerprinting for each restaurant order.
Why?
If you care that much about the moral aspect of business, it would only be responsible for the business to care about the morality of the customer. Since there is no social score system yet, using credit rating and criminal record may be appropriate. Actually banks are legally turning down customers with low credit rating, so it should be somewhat legal.
A minimum of 720 to shop Trader Joe and 700 for Hannaford should be about right, maybe? Otherwise go to Walmart!
PS happy goat have eaten quote format!
Having a credit score be equitable to a morality score is some dystopian shit.
Quote from: kkt on February 19, 2025, 02:01:59 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 08:46:07 AMQuote from: Scott5114 on February 17, 2025, 10:37:21 PMQuote from: thspfc on February 17, 2025, 09:47:11 PMHowever that still doesn't prove the original point that profit incentives never make a difference for any product.
It might, but it's so hard to come up with a recent example nobody has done so...
*Automobiles are more expensive, but they are also way better now than they ever have been. Safer, more reliable, more "gadgets," etc.
*Movie theatres cost more, but have better seating options, and the sound and picture is better than ever.
*Phones are way more expensive than ever, but they do a million times more than the cell phones of decades ago.
I could list a dozen more if you want me to.
I would argue with all of those.
Cars reached their pinacle with the Japanese late 1990s models, for economy, safety, and reliability. Later models feature fancy electronics nobody should be looking at while they are operating a motor vehicle, and make the car as a whole less reliable. In addition to mechanical sources of breakdown, now all the electronics may make key features not work - like one of my car's electronics modules failed one, which didn't strand me exactly but the headlights wouldn't come on and it was night and I really wanted to get home. And later, of course, the dealer could not replicate the problem so I'll never know when it might happen again.
Cars are more reliable now than they ever have been. This is just a fact.
Quote from: kkt on February 19, 2025, 02:01:59 AMMovies that appeal to people over 16 don't even seem to be made anymore. Massive special effects explosions are apparently more reliable profit centers than good writers.
Quote from: kkt on February 19, 2025, 02:01:59 AMMovies that appeal to people over 16 don't even seem to be made anymore. Massive special effects explosions are apparently more reliable profit centers than good writers.
That's not really the point of my statement, but OK.
Quote from: kkt on February 19, 2025, 02:01:59 AMPhone have a lot of fancy features but fail on reliability. They are deliberately made to smash if dropped from a hand onto a paved surface, in a triumph of planned obsolescence. There are cases that can protect them - but they make an already bulky thing to carry around even more bulky, and why doesn't the phone have a case that protects it included? You have to buy a new one for every phone, for more planned obsolescence. They still suck up battery charges in a matter of hours, and reception outside cities or during times of stress like natural disasters you may not be able to get through at all. And they are still an Orwellian dream for tracking where everyone is and what they're doing.
Ever drop a flip phone? They broke way more easier than an iPhone. Not even close.
Anyway, the phones of today are simply better. They do more. If you want to stick with old technology and a phone than pretty much is only good for calling and rudamentary texting, that's fine, but that is simply not a better phone.
Anyway, you sound like someone who is just engaged in flowery thinking about a bygone era.
Quote from: kkt on February 19, 2025, 01:32:01 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 17, 2025, 08:44:56 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 16, 2025, 10:04:00 PMReddit is practically an institution at this point. It going behind a paywall would be a fundamental change in the way people use the internet. Well, it certainly would be for me, anyways. I'd have to get an account (which would increase my time commitment, since then I'd feel more obligated to keep up with things), and browsing without an account would be a thing of the past. The tendency of Reddit mods to ban people at the drop of a hat would also be a bigger deal, since being able to browse without an account would be no more. Where would I go? Internet forums are practically dead outside of this one, and I don't know enough people who share my interests and tendency for deep discussion to keep me happy. And I'd have to find something else to do with my time.
The world has built itself around a free Reddit. Heck, just look at the number of people who end up appending "site:reddit.com" to the end of their searches to get more useful results. I do it all the time. It's pretty much required if you want advise or thoughts from regular people and not some watered-down corporate article that might not even be on what you really want.
Like it or not, people have built up an expectation of Reddit being free from more than a decade of history of it being so, with no indication that it would ever be otherwise.
Yes. It would be annoying and inconvenient if Reddit would be put behind a paywall.
But nothing you are describing above comes close to "morally repugnant" or "should be illegal." Perspective would be nice.
Really? I don't participate in Reddit but it comes up as Google results a lot. I found the results there often unreliable - fringe minority opinion not marked as such, or outdated or just plain wrong. No way will I pay to read results there.
Then don't. I won't either.
But it's not "morally repugnant" if they do so. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company charging for its product.
Why would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
An iPhone or its Android equivalent is more advanced than a flip phone. There's no question here.
I didn't notice that much difference between an iPhone SE (between 5 and 6) and my current iPhone 13; as I mentioned before, the two main differences I noticed were more storage and better camera zoom. In addition, loading an app with data was slow (4 minutes for a biweekly update for a Candy Crush clone) with my old phone, but if I was using my home wifi, it would be almost immediate just like my current phone downloads apps under any data or wifi. "Dead spots" where I can't get signal have not improved with the phone upgrade, even though my new phone is 5G and my old phone was 4G LTE.
The first iPhone was in 2007, so 2010, plus or minus a few years, definitely seems to be a turning point here.
Quote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in
@vdeane view?
Quote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 10:21:30 PMWell you brought up a ton of stuff in your paragraph above...but somehow forgot to include "can't charge for something that once was free." lol.
I take it that logic really isn't a strong suit of yours.
So I have to restate everything I previously said whenever I reply to you? What the actual fuck?
Now you're just being deliberately obtuse.
I'M being obtuse!?!?!?
You think that's it's "morally repugnant" and it should be illegal for company to charge for something they used to give away free. That's an absolutely ridiculous opinion - there is no deception or fraud if Reddit decides to do this. So what is the harm exactly?
Furthermore your attempts to justify your opinion have lead you down a philosopical rabbit hole of all sorts of inconsistancies and contradictions. And unfortunately, you don't seem to understand how they are inconsistent and contradict themselves. You are basing everything on feelings and vibes and not on logic and facts - and a complete lack of understanding of how the world actually works.
Quote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
Quote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
I mean, if I were a small business owner and someone like Nick Fuentes requested service, I would take great pleasure in telling him to fuck off.
Quote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Going back to near the beginning of this entire conversation. The part I'm not understanding is why it should be illegal for a company to take a free service and make it something you have to pay for?
Quote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:35:42 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Come to Jalisco, they are $44 Pesos for a pack of 18 eggs as of last night. The price actually went down slightly this week even.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:37:13 AMGoing back to near the beginning of this entire conversation. The part I'm not understanding is why it should be illegal for a company to take a free service and make it something you have to pay for?
"Because vdeane doesn't want to pay for it" is pretty much the best justification that's come from this topic.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:37:13 AMGoing back to near the beginning of this entire conversation. The part I'm not understanding is why it should be illegal for a company to take a free service and make it something you have to pay for?
One case when it may be illegal is when free service is used to displace competitors offering the same service for a fee, and establishing new fees when the competition is out of business.
Not that it's the reddit case, but as an example of legality.
Quote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:35:42 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Oh, of course. Wouldn't want to be morally repugnant or anything.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:38:00 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:35:42 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Come to Jalisco, they are $44 Pesos for a pack of 18 eggs as of last night. The price actually went down slightly this week even.
A mere 40 hour drive.
Quote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 10:17:41 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:38:00 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:35:42 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Come to Jalisco, they are $44 Pesos for a pack of 18 eggs as of last night. The price actually went down slightly this week even.
A mere 40 hour drive.
A true roadgeek could turn it into a 55 hour drive and clinch some more roads. :)
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 19, 2025, 10:21:57 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 10:17:41 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:38:00 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:35:42 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Come to Jalisco, they are $44 Pesos for a pack of 18 eggs as of last night. The price actually went down slightly this week even.
A mere 40 hour drive.
A true roadgeek could turn it into a 55 hour drive and clinch some more roads. :)
I guarantee there is plenty of worthwhile stuff between here and the border. FritzOwl got my attention on clinching Federal Highway 24 some day.
Quote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 10:17:41 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:38:00 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:35:42 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Come to Jalisco, they are $44 Pesos for a pack of 18 eggs as of last night. The price actually went down slightly this week even.
A mere 40 hour drive.
Duck eggs are also an option. There are quite a few local operations in MN selling to the co-ops. There's a different texture, but overall similar in taste.
Quote from: Molandfreak on February 19, 2025, 11:00:27 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 10:17:41 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:38:00 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:35:42 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:21:09 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:09:19 AMQuote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:03:01 AMWhy would a business care about a customer's morals? That could only ever lose them money. Except for maybe mortgages, cars, and predatory private lending.
To keep their high moral standing in @vdeane view?
In that world, the customer still has the power. Businesses would never shrink their customer base on purpose unless either a) it's profitable or b) the law implores them to do so.
I know there is an ongoing shortage of eggs, but I though sarcasm is still stocked up normally?
Come to Jalisco, they are $44 Pesos for a pack of 18 eggs as of last night. The price actually went down slightly this week even.
A mere 40 hour drive.
Duck eggs are also an option. There are quite a few local operations in MN selling to the co-ops. There's a different texture, but overall similar in taste.
Plenty of farm and grocery store options for regular chicken eggs in Fresno. The competition from panic buyers has mostly been limited to the realm of Costco shoppers. Eggs get so much mileage for me that even the elevated price is still a drop in the bucket.
Quote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 08:08:15 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMQuote from: kalvadoWith such an approach... Be prepared to submit for a background and credit check before being allowed to shop for groceries in any given store. A separate one for each store. Add fingerprinting for each restaurant order.
Why?
If you care that much about the moral aspect of business, it would only be responsible for the business to care about the morality of the customer. Since there is no social score system yet, using credit rating and criminal record may be appropriate. Actually banks are legally turning down customers with low credit rating, so it should be somewhat legal.
A minimum of 720 to shop Trader Joe and 700 for Hannaford should be about right, maybe? Otherwise go to Walmart!
PS happy goat have eaten quote format!
Still doesn't follow. The purpose of society, and therefore the businesses in it, is to serve people. Businesses aren't people, people are people. Worrying about the morals of everything is the job of law enforcement and the courts (once the law is revamped for the protection and benefit of normal people and not capital, anyways).
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 09:19:11 AMI'M being obtuse!?!?!?
You think that's it's "morally repugnant" and it should be illegal for company to charge for something they used to give away free. That's an absolutely ridiculous opinion - there is no deception or fraud if Reddit decides to do this. So what is the harm exactly?
Furthermore your attempts to justify your opinion have lead you down a philosopical rabbit hole of all sorts of inconsistancies and contradictions. And unfortunately, you don't seem to understand how they are inconsistent and contradict themselves. You are basing everything on feelings and vibes and not on logic and facts - and a complete lack of understanding of how the world actually works.
You're the one who demanded that I restate every argument I've made in the whole thread in every post I reply to you, so yes. I have never even heard of such a thing. Dear God, I'm responding to forum posts of someone who I suspect I have more than a few political differences with - not writing a manifesto.
The harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
I do have at least some knowledge of how the world works - not enough to "work the system" and maneuver myself into a position of influence (alas), but enough to hold humanity in disdain and believe that, unless something seriously changes, humanity represents a threat to any more civilized societies that may or may not exist across the universe. Let's hope humanity changes before it gets the power to head out there, because humanity being able to leave this solar system in its present state would be the worst thing to every happen to any life form living elsewhere. Where we have issue is that, while most people seem to learn how the world works and think "I guess that makes it OK" (it's amazing how social pressure is one of the strongest forces in the universe on the human psyche - thankfully, I seem to have a certain amount of resistance to it), instead it only served to make me horrified and dig into my beliefs even more.
The fact of the matter is, and IPO being something that is seen by a threat of people who like a business is one of the fundamental problems of our society. I know Wegmans fans are dreading the day that Danny kicks the bucket and the daughters decide to go public. The Reddit IPO was considered by users of the site to be one of the worst things that ever happened to it. Some API changes from it resulted in a days-long blackout protest that the site still hasn't fully recovered from, as many just never returned (sadly, they went to Discord rather than Lemmy...).
Quote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 09:46:26 AMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:37:13 AMGoing back to near the beginning of this entire conversation. The part I'm not understanding is why it should be illegal for a company to take a free service and make it something you have to pay for?
One case when it may be illegal is when free service is used to displace competitors offering the same service for a fee, and establishing new fees when the competition is out of business.
Not that it's the reddit case, but as an example of legality.
Or in the case of Reddit, the free service displaced other free services.
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMQuote from: kalvado on February 19, 2025, 08:08:15 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMQuote from: kalvadoWith such an approach... Be prepared to submit for a background and credit check before being allowed to shop for groceries in any given store. A separate one for each store. Add fingerprinting for each restaurant order.
Why?
If you care that much about the moral aspect of business, it would only be responsible for the business to care about the morality of the customer. Since there is no social score system yet, using credit rating and criminal record may be appropriate. Actually banks are legally turning down customers with low credit rating, so it should be somewhat legal.
A minimum of 720 to shop Trader Joe and 700 for Hannaford should be about right, maybe? Otherwise go to Walmart!
PS happy goat have eaten quote format!
Still doesn't follow. The purpose of society, and therefore the businesses in it, is to serve people. Businesses aren't people, people are people. Worrying about the morals of everything is the job of law enforcement and the courts (once the law is revamped for the protection and benefit of normal people and not capital, anyways).
Yet you want business to have their values aligned with yours - including moral and religious values (sunday hours, medical coverage details, donations to (im)proper politicians are common reasons for indignation). So why same should not be true for the business (not) willing to serve people who have their values not aligned with theirs? Business may be not a person, depending on who you ask - but it does have owners who are people with their morals and values.
And in a buyer market business would be certainly chasing sales, but what if it turns into a seller market?
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMOr in the case of Reddit, the free service displaced other free services.
Many would say that was an honest competition of free services. And discussion on service monetization are going on for decades, whoever won would need to cash things out after all.
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMYou're the one who demanded that I restate every argument I've made in the whole thread in every post I reply to you, so yes. I have never even heard of such a thing. Dear God, I'm responding to forum posts of someone who I suspect I have more than a few political differences with - not writing a manifesto.
I am a social liberal with economic beliefs that support more of a free market. Vote Democrat about 99% of the time.
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Are you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 09:19:11 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 10:21:30 PMWell you brought up a ton of stuff in your paragraph above...but somehow forgot to include "can't charge for something that once was free." lol.
I take it that logic really isn't a strong suit of yours.
So I have to restate everything I previously said whenever I reply to you? What the actual fuck?
Now you're just being deliberately obtuse.
I'M being obtuse!?!?!?
You think that's it's "morally repugnant" and it should be illegal for company to charge for something they used to give away free. That's an absolutely ridiculous opinion - there is no deception or fraud if Reddit decides to do this. So what is the harm exactly?
Stop bouncing on spez's dick already.
People really care that much about Reddit?
Might be a good time for Usenet to make a comeback. :bigass:
Quote from: LilianaUwU on February 19, 2025, 02:18:15 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 09:19:11 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 18, 2025, 10:49:54 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 18, 2025, 10:21:30 PMWell you brought up a ton of stuff in your paragraph above...but somehow forgot to include "can't charge for something that once was free." lol.
I take it that logic really isn't a strong suit of yours.
So I have to restate everything I previously said whenever I reply to you? What the actual fuck?
Now you're just being deliberately obtuse.
I'M being obtuse!?!?!?
You think that's it's "morally repugnant" and it should be illegal for company to charge for something they used to give away free. That's an absolutely ridiculous opinion - there is no deception or fraud if Reddit decides to do this. So what is the harm exactly?
Stop bouncing on spez's dick already.
Yes, here I am, the radical, libertarian capitalist who believes that...<checks notes>...businesses should be able to charge for their products. :-| :-|
I don't know guys, nearly half a billion dollars net loss usually requires a company the size of Reddit do something to turn things around. It doesn't seem like the way they are doing things currently is sustainable.
HB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 02:57:35 PMI don't know guys, nearly half a billion dollars net loss usually requires a company the size of Reddit do something to turn things around. It doesn't seem like the way they are doing things currently is sustainable.
Ah, what was it? [
checks notes] Stop bouncing on . . . [
checks notes] spez {?} morally repugnant capitalist cock? Am I doing this right?
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 02:06:11 PMAre you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Apparently, it is more harmful to the customer that he (a) be charged for something that once was free than (b) for the company to shut down entirely because it can no longer afford to continue providing something for free.
Quote from: kphoger on February 19, 2025, 03:49:00 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 02:06:11 PMAre you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Apparently, it is more harmful to the customer that he (a) be charged for something that once was free than (b) for the company to shut down entirely because it can no longer afford to continue providing something for free.
That's about 3 levels above the degree of thinking the user in question is operating at here.
Quote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
Calrog tried to make a splash on some Facebook road groups (California specifically). I took action with our page account and my personal profile to ensure he wasn't aware of our presence. I never interacted with the guy, but his unsavory reputation proceeded him.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 04:28:11 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
Calrog tried to make a splash on some Facebook road groups (California specifically). I took action with our page account and my personal profile to ensure he wasn't aware of our presence. I never interacted with the guy, but his unsavory reputation proceeded him.
Which is the exact reason that usenet faded away. Moderated forums (like AA Roads) and Facebook groups kept the spam and riff-raff out.
The glory days of usenet were wonderful. Kind of a wild west part of the old internet. But it can't really come back now.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:40:41 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 04:28:11 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
Calrog tried to make a splash on some Facebook road groups (California specifically). I took action with our page account and my personal profile to ensure he wasn't aware of our presence. I never interacted with the guy, but his unsavory reputation proceeded him.
Which is the exact reason that usenet faded away. Moderated forums (like AA Roads) and Facebook groups kept the spam and riff-raff out.
The glory days of usenet were wonderful. Kind of a wild west part of the old internet. But it can't really come back now.
It could come back, but with the polarization of the world right now it would be 10X more wacky than it already was. It would only attract the most extremist of weirdos because any sane person would nope out of there in days.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMThe problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
They could make some content require payment to access and roll out a paid sub-Usenet. These private areas of exclusive content would, by design, have much less spam. This could be one of the new, key features of a Usenet renaissance.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMThat and Carl Rogers was very annoying
True, but singing about a little bush isn't nearly as annoying as designating only certain floors for elevators to stop or inventing new saints days on a calendar.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
What's interesting is that (> 10 years ago) Carl and I had a mutual friend, and I went to lunch with them. I was bracing for an entertaining yet arduous time, but face to face, Carl was (by Bay Area techie standards) a normal guy. Either he was consciously code-switching, or there's something about being online that changes some people (and not just him).
We talked about work and road stuff, and I did not try to stir the pot with m.t.r drama. Nor did he.
Quote from: kurumi on February 19, 2025, 08:33:10 PMor there's something about being online that changes some people
Is there even any question?
Quote from: kphoger on February 19, 2025, 03:49:00 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 02:06:11 PMAre you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Apparently, it is more harmful to the customer that he (a) be charged for something that once was free than (b) for the company to shut down entirely because it can no longer afford to continue providing something for free.
So how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence? Everyone supporting Reddit's CEO seems to be acting like it's a new site with unstable finances or something, but no, by internet standards, it's actually quite old, and practically an integral part of the experience these days (especially given that Google's traditional web search has gotten worse and worse in recent years, to the point where many people habitually append "site:reddit.com" to their queries).
People also seem to be missing that I care more about not being able to browse without being signed into an account more than the financial aspect.
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMQuote from: kphoger on February 19, 2025, 03:49:00 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 02:06:11 PMAre you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Apparently, it is more harmful to the customer that he (a) be charged for something that once was free than (b) for the company to shut down entirely because it can no longer afford to continue providing something for free.
So how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence? Everyone supporting Reddit's CEO seems to be acting like it's a new site with unstable finances or something, but no, by internet standards, it's actually quite old, and practically an integral part of the experience these days (especially given that Google's traditional web search has gotten worse and worse in recent years, to the point where many people habitually append "site:reddit.com" to their queries).
People also seem to be missing that I care more about not being able to browse without being signed into an account more than the financial aspect.
I tend to question how integral Reddit given how much money they have lost since their IPO. While the site might cater to road fans and AARoads users does that actual transfer outside this demographic? I don't picture Reddit being all that popular with people who use more mainstream social media platforms. I also doubt most people think all that deeply over what search engine results they get.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:54:48 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMQuote from: kphoger on February 19, 2025, 03:49:00 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 02:06:11 PMAre you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Apparently, it is more harmful to the customer that he (a) be charged for something that once was free than (b) for the company to shut down entirely because it can no longer afford to continue providing something for free.
So how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence? Everyone supporting Reddit's CEO seems to be acting like it's a new site with unstable finances or something, but no, by internet standards, it's actually quite old, and practically an integral part of the experience these days (especially given that Google's traditional web search has gotten worse and worse in recent years, to the point where many people habitually append "site:reddit.com" to their queries).
People also seem to be missing that I care more about not being able to browse without being signed into an account more than the financial aspect.
I tend to question how integral Reddit given how much money they have lost since their IPO. While the site might cater to road fans and AARoads users does that actual transfer outside of demographics? I don't picture Reddit being all that popular with people who use more mainstream social media platforms.
For one, Google right now provides reddit results as first choice for many searches. Quite a few review sites were heart when the policy was implemented.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:54:48 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMQuote from: kphoger on February 19, 2025, 03:49:00 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 02:06:11 PMAre you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Apparently, it is more harmful to the customer that he (a) be charged for something that once was free than (b) for the company to shut down entirely because it can no longer afford to continue providing something for free.
So how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence? Everyone supporting Reddit's CEO seems to be acting like it's a new site with unstable finances or something, but no, by internet standards, it's actually quite old, and practically an integral part of the experience these days (especially given that Google's traditional web search has gotten worse and worse in recent years, to the point where many people habitually append "site:reddit.com" to their queries).
People also seem to be missing that I care more about not being able to browse without being signed into an account more than the financial aspect.
I tend to question how integral Reddit given how much money they have lost since their IPO. While the site might cater to road fans and AARoads users does that actual transfer outside of demographics? I don't picture Reddit being all that popular with people who use more mainstream social media platforms.
By most measurements it ranks between 5 and 10 in terms of the most popular social medias in the US.
To me it seems like its user base is Twitter except younger, more progressive (not saying that's a good or bad thing, just something that is), and somehow even more negative.
Quote from: thspfc on February 19, 2025, 09:58:50 PMQuote from: Max Rockatansky on February 19, 2025, 09:54:48 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMQuote from: kphoger on February 19, 2025, 03:49:00 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 01:01:15 PMThe harm is how it affects the users of the site and makes their lives less convenient than before. The fact that society doesn't seem to care is not my problem.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 02:06:11 PMAre you seriously suggesting that making a customer's life less convenient is harmful? Harm means damange to someone's property, finances or well-being. Reddit moving from a free to fee model does none of those things. Customers would engage in a willing transaction.
Apparently, it is more harmful to the customer that he (a) be charged for something that once was free than (b) for the company to shut down entirely because it can no longer afford to continue providing something for free.
So how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence? Everyone supporting Reddit's CEO seems to be acting like it's a new site with unstable finances or something, but no, by internet standards, it's actually quite old, and practically an integral part of the experience these days (especially given that Google's traditional web search has gotten worse and worse in recent years, to the point where many people habitually append "site:reddit.com" to their queries).
People also seem to be missing that I care more about not being able to browse without being signed into an account more than the financial aspect.
I tend to question how integral Reddit given how much money they have lost since their IPO. While the site might cater to road fans and AARoads users does that actual transfer outside of demographics? I don't picture Reddit being all that popular with people who use more mainstream social media platforms.
By most measurements it ranks between 5 and 10 in terms of the most popular social medias in the US.
To me it seems like its user base is Twitter except younger, more progressive (not saying that's a good or bad thing, just something that is), and somehow even more negative.
That negativity has kept me away from both Reddit and Twitter. I just never felt like I need to talk about politics or complain about like stuff on a daily basis. We did try a GN Twitter account but it never caught on.
Quote from: hbelkins on February 19, 2025, 02:22:05 PMPeople really care that much about Reddit?
Might be a good time for Usenet to make a comeback. :bigass:
I'd like that.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
Quote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
In a grand scheme of things, you are not eliminating costs here, you are redistributing them
It is not impossible that once a big player like reddit does it, many others would follow. Free emails may become a thing of a past pretty quickly.
"Who pays" is a long and difficult conversation. And the ultimate answer is "you do"...
Quote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
But that's no different than a message board right?
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMSo how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence?
Not profitably. Q3 2024 was literally the first time it turned a profit.
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMPeople also seem to be missing that I care more about not being able to browse without being signed into an account more than the financial aspect.
But those two things are linked together, because users that are signed in with an account are more financially advantageous for Reddit (more data for better-targeted advertising, the possibility of paying for Reddit Gold, actual interaction creating greater overall attractiveness to potential new users, etc). That is to say, requiring people to have an account in order to see certain content is a key component of Reddit's financial strategy.
Quote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
I never plonked Calrog, as he was comic relief most of the time. But I did end up plonking Randy Hersh and all his sock puppets because he/they were genuinely annoying and abusive. But that's the beauty of Usenet. The onus is on the reader to determine what content he or she wants to see.
But to the broader Reddit discussion, let me first say that the only times I've ever visited the site have been when someone sent me a link to view. But having said that, the time has apparently come that the site owner can no longer operate the site without some level of fees.
Let me bring this home. Right now, we all enjoy AA Roads, and especially this forum, free of charge. Alex Nitzman foots the bill and deals with the hassles. What happens if or when he makes the determination he can no longer afford to pay the associated fees?
Just some food for thought.
Quote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMSo how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence?
Mostly due to venture capital covering its losses. It just went public last year.
Quote from: hbelkins on February 20, 2025, 02:35:26 PMQuote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
I never plonked Calrog, as he was comic relief most of the time. But I did end up plonking Randy Hersh and all his sock puppets because he/they were genuinely annoying and abusive. But that's the beauty of Usenet. The onus is on the reader to determine what content he or she wants to see.
But to the broader Reddit discussion, let me first say that the only times I've ever visited the site have been when someone sent me a link to view. But having said that, the time has apparently come that the site owner can no longer operate the site without some level of fees.
Let me bring this home. Right now, we all enjoy AA Roads, and especially this forum, free of charge. Alex Nitzman foots the bill and deals with the hassles. What happens if or when he makes the determination he can no longer afford to pay the associated fees?
Just some food for thought.
I've never asked Alex the details about how this forum and site are funded. Assuming the AAroads Facebook page is monetized though (which I don't know for certain) there ought to be a pretty decent return for the amount of engagement it generates. I base that assumption off of what our Facebook page usually generates.
This site has ads if you don't have an account, or if you do but have fewer than 3 posts.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 20, 2025, 05:15:56 AMQuote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
But that's no different than a message board right?
With usenet, you or your ISP stored the messages. If a message board goes away and the Wayback Machine doesn't happen to have a snapshot, it's gone.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 20, 2025, 03:03:55 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMSo how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence?
Mostly due to venture capital covering its losses. It just went public last year.
Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity. But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity. It's got what plants crave.
Quote from: vdeane on February 20, 2025, 10:07:05 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 20, 2025, 03:03:55 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMSo how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence?
Mostly due to venture capital covering its losses. It just went public last year.
Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity. But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity. It's got what plants crave.
In some ways, tech as a whole has basically been hopping from bubble to bubble in hopes of staying alive.
Quote from: freebrickproductions on February 20, 2025, 10:37:31 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 20, 2025, 10:07:05 PMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 20, 2025, 03:03:55 PMQuote from: vdeane on February 19, 2025, 09:45:26 PMSo how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence?
Mostly due to venture capital covering its losses. It just went public last year.
Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity. But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity. It's got what plants crave.
In some ways, tech as a whole has basically been hopping from bubble to bubble in hopes of staying alive.
Now I've got the BeeGee's Stayin' Alive running through my head... thanks a lot, I think :)
Quote from: vdeane on February 20, 2025, 10:07:05 PMHonestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity. But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity. It's got what plants crave.
Boom Technology (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=35658.0) has entered the chat.
Quote from: kphoger on February 21, 2025, 09:01:39 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 20, 2025, 10:07:05 PMHonestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity. But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity. It's got what plants crave.
Boom Technology (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=35658.0) has entered the chat.
No way. I heard even Wright brothers planned for first class seats.
Quote from: kalvado on February 21, 2025, 10:45:30 AMQuote from: kphoger on February 21, 2025, 09:01:39 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 20, 2025, 10:07:05 PMHonestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity. But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity. It's got what plants crave.
Boom Technology (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=35658.0) has entered the chat.
No way. I heard even Wright brothers planned for first class seats.
Directly, or by word of mouth?
Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 21, 2025, 11:16:32 AMQuote from: kalvado on February 21, 2025, 10:45:30 AMQuote from: kphoger on February 21, 2025, 09:01:39 AMQuote from: vdeane on February 20, 2025, 10:07:05 PMHonestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity. But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity. It's got what plants crave.
Boom Technology (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=35658.0) has entered the chat.
No way. I heard even Wright brothers planned for first class seats.
Directly, or by word of mouth?
I am not sure by now, but Orville wasn't very talkative.
Quote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
Moderated newsgroups E-mailed the posts to the moderator, who would manually post them through their local news server with an approval header. Moderating a binaries newsgroup or a popular one with a lot of bots or cretins could be a
lot of fun if your mail host was running low on space. Don't ask me how I know this ...
On the other hand, Usenet doesn't generally come with modern Internet packages, so I would imagine many, if not most, people on Usenet now actually
are paying for it. There are some free servers but they tend to have poor reputations or strict limits. That's not exactly the Eternal September of yore.
Considering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.
Quote from: TheGrassGuy on February 21, 2025, 10:07:12 PMConsidering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.
This is an incredibly rude thing to say when you know the person that is responsible for that is reading it.
Nobody's profiting off of the forum theme being different. I have been pretty transparent as to why it hasn't come back: it's a big time sink. I'm not getting paid to do it, so things that I
do get paid for have taken priority. You know, so I don't lose my house. Also, I moved halfway across the continent in that time period. And since it's a low priority, I forget it's even on my to do list sometimes.
Being an asshole about it certainly doesn't motivate me to prioritize it any higher.
Quote from: TheGrassGuy on February 21, 2025, 10:07:12 PMConsidering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.
You can delete this you know.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on February 22, 2025, 07:09:40 AMQuote from: TheGrassGuy on February 21, 2025, 10:07:12 PMConsidering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.
You can delete this you know.
Alternatively, you may ask for theme files from the previous and current versions and offer some help
Quote from: ClassicHasClass on February 21, 2025, 07:55:01 PMQuote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
Moderated newsgroups E-mailed the posts to the moderator, who would manually post them through their local news server with an approval header. Moderating a binaries newsgroup or a popular one with a lot of bots or cretins could be a lot of fun if your mail host was running low on space. Don't ask me how I know this ...
On the other hand, Usenet doesn't generally come with modern Internet packages, so I would imagine many, if not most, people on Usenet now actually are paying for it. There are some free servers but they tend to have poor reputations or strict limits. That's not exactly the Eternal September of yore.
There ARE still some servers operating? Is there any content left that is NOT spam? My ISP had a Usenet server and then stopped... I switched over to one of the still operating free servers for about a year, and then THEY stopped. That was the point when I gave up.
Quote from: kkt on February 22, 2025, 05:33:26 PMQuote from: ClassicHasClass on February 21, 2025, 07:55:01 PMQuote from: kkt on February 20, 2025, 12:30:06 AMQuote from: SEWIGuy on February 19, 2025, 04:26:22 PMQuote from: Rothman on February 19, 2025, 03:01:20 PMHB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.
The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.
That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.
With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy. There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.
Moderated newsgroups E-mailed the posts to the moderator, who would manually post them through their local news server with an approval header. Moderating a binaries newsgroup or a popular one with a lot of bots or cretins could be a lot of fun if your mail host was running low on space. Don't ask me how I know this ...
On the other hand, Usenet doesn't generally come with modern Internet packages, so I would imagine many, if not most, people on Usenet now actually are paying for it. There are some free servers but they tend to have poor reputations or strict limits. That's not exactly the Eternal September of yore.
There ARE still some servers operating? Is there any content left that is NOT spam? My ISP had a Usenet server and then stopped... I switched over to one of the still operating free servers for about a year, and then THEY stopped. That was the point when I gave up.
Yeah, there are still some specialist paid servers like Supernews/Giganews around. In fact, your ISP may have outsourced their news spool to them; many do. That's what I used to use, but it was increasingly expensive for somewhere I was spending little time on anymore.
What's the best paid Usenet server functioning now? My old server (Newsguy) went bankrupt a few years ago and shut down abruptly. And are there any decent user-side clients available anymore? Thoth for Mac isn't in development anymore.