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Don't Be A Free User

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Re: Don't Be A Free User

#171
post #170
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rob Walling's "Start Small, Stay Small" is pretty good too, and has less gratuitous profanity.

I think I'd argue that the profanity is for effect/emphasis, and to mark the post out as a rant - it's clearly (to me) being used intentionally as a writing technique. Which suggests 'gratuitous' is a harsher adjective than strictly requires, and may simply reflect that you aren't fond of profanity's use at all. I think either dropping the word entirely from your comment or perhaps replacing it with 'prolific', which…

"Gratuitous" is a judgment: profanity loses its shock value if you lace everything you say/write with it. I don't know if the rest of her writing is like that (my recollection is that it isn't), but this piece was too heavy on it. A well placed "fuck" can add a lot, if used judiciously, but it's the kind of thing where you only sit up and take notice of it due to its absence elsewhere.

Re: Don't Be A Free User

#172

This article operates under the very incorrect assumption that paid services never shut down and free services are never carried on by their purchasers. See Flickr or YouTube or PayPal or Skype or Picnik or Grand Central or Picasa or Siri or mySpace or FriendFeed or FeedBurner or even pinboard's biggest competitor Delicious for examples of the latter. As for the former, there's an unlimited number of examples (for a…

"""This article operates under the very incorrect assumption that paid services never shut down and free services are never carried on by their purchasers.""" No, it operates under the very correct assumption that paid services are MUCH LESS common to shut down. (I shudder every f&%&^n time someone doesn't understand a generalization, and thinks that a few counter arguments disprove a statistical rule). """See Flickr…

>No, it operates under the very correct assumption that paid services are MUCH LESS common to shut down.

Yep. Not to mention that, in paying for the service, you become the service's customer. The relationship with a free service is much murkier; instead, you are often its product, and the company has an incentive to manipulate you and breach your trust.

Re: Don't Be A Free User

#173
post #74

"You might call this the anti-free-software movement." While I agree with his argument (and I'm a pinboard customer), I am not for mixing the term 'free software' with 'free, unmodifiable, supported, centrally hosted web service'. To me, free software means code sharing and the ability to modify software and run it personally as I choose. The difference boils down to resources. With free software I do get the source;…

It was clearly a joke. Laugh a little. :)

oh!

lal

Re: Don't Be A Free User

#174
While he has a point, I feel somehow offensed^W trolled by such one-sided opinion. Should someone fork HN and make a paid/ad-filled version of it? Doubt so.

It's probably because I totally don't get that "oh, their service is so good I want them charge more" mindset.

Re: Don't Be A Free User

#175

To partly rebut what maciej is saying here, I'd point out that Backblaze is a very successful not-free service which was also courting purchase offers; paying for a service is no guarantee that you'll get to rely on that service forever, which is a major failing of web-based services in general (and a frequently-mentioned point from my clients when I suggest using some web-based service or another). But I mostly agre…

Is Backblaze profitable? A lot of services which charge money still don't charge enough to be self-sustaining. A self-sustaining product may still be sold. But if a product CAN'T sustain itself, it MUST either be sold, or shut down, eventually.

If they aren't profitable now, I don't see how they will ever get to be. There are no network effects where a tipping point would make them profitable, and hardware is already customized and costs are directly dependent on number of users.

Re: Don't Be A Free User

#176

This article operates under the very incorrect assumption that paid services never shut down and free services are never carried on by their purchasers. See Flickr or YouTube or PayPal or Skype or Picnik or Grand Central or Picasa or Siri or mySpace or FriendFeed or FeedBurner or even pinboard's biggest competitor Delicious for examples of the latter. As for the former, there's an unlimited number of examples (for a…

Delicious, for all intents and purposes, WAS shut down, and a new, barely related site was put up in its place. I was a Delicious user for years, with thousands of links tagged, and I continued using it for as long as I could stand under Avos, but the features that they cut and/or broke in the transition finally made me throw up my hands, give up, and switch...first to Trunk.ly, which Avos then bought and shut down (…

I would like to recommend a bookmarking site, Do you think it well? It only Bookmarks! webput.com

Re: Don't Be A Free User

#177

To partly rebut what maciej is saying here, I'd point out that Backblaze is a very successful not-free service which was also courting purchase offers; paying for a service is no guarantee that you'll get to rely on that service forever, which is a major failing of web-based services in general (and a frequently-mentioned point from my clients when I suggest using some web-based service or another). But I mostly agre…

I will probably start paying for his page archival service within the next month. I'm more comfortable with it not only because of his track record so far, but because I know I am his customer. If it were a free service, I'd be far more concerned about how many concessions he'd be willing to make for his real customers -- advertisers or metrics companies or who-knows. As the old saying goes, "If you're not paying, yo…

The old saying is not very old.

Here's the original: http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-discontent#325604...

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