Start Paying for Internet Stuff
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Start Paying for Internet Stuff
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#2I generally agree, although paying for things still doesn't prevent companies from tracking us, selling our data or advertising to us. The additional income stream is hard to resist.
Another thing: if you won't pay for something, consider sending the creator a few words of praise. It might not pay the bills, but it feels damn good to be on the receiving end of kind words.
My business model allows me to give everything away for free without compromising on ethics. However, it's the positive feedback that really makes me want to continue on this path. The occasional "thank you" email never fails to make me smile.
I've since learned to praise everyone whose work I use or enjoy.
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#3no thanks, I'll always pick free and ad-supported
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#4no thanks, I'll always pick free and ad-supported
Same but I grew up in the Kazaa era.
Never pay for software.
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#5I generally agree, although paying for things still doesn't prevent companies from tracking us, selling our data or advertising to us. The additional income stream is hard to resist. Another thing: if you won't pay for something, consider sending the creator a few words of praise. It might not pay the bills, but it feels damn good to be on the receiving end of kind words. My business model allows me to give everythin…
> I generally agree, although paying for things still doesn't prevent companies from tracking us, selling our data or advertising to us. The additional income stream is hard to resist.
Sure, but it better aligns their economic interests with the users' interests. Not perfect, but better.
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#6Before Gmail there were a multitude of ways to get free email accounts, their big thing was it wasn’t tied to your ISP or whatever (like a university) so you didn’t have to worry about losing access when you switched providers.
Also, back in the day, a lot of the websites were advertising for real life things like magazines.
Somewhere along the way, dot-com boom I’m guessing, it all shifted and there’s no way you’re getting that cat back in the bag.
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#7Most subscription services are too expensive for the average user. They're great for B2B but as a user I rarely get enough value out of them to subscribe, with some exceptions.
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#8Why should I care if the economy were to move entirely off the web? Anything beyond sparsely scattered minor inconveniences?
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#9I generally agree, although paying for things still doesn't prevent companies from tracking us, selling our data or advertising to us. The additional income stream is hard to resist. Another thing: if you won't pay for something, consider sending the creator a few words of praise. It might not pay the bills, but it feels damn good to be on the receiving end of kind words. My business model allows me to give everythin…
The recent Apple fiasco about introducing ads into iOS shows how true your statement is. It doesn't matter (apparently) that you paid £1500 for a brand new spanking phone, Apple will still want to milk you for money, even though they made about 50% pure profit on that single sale.
A very apt comparison would be blackmail - you'd think that paying the blackmailers their demand would sort things out, simple transaction, I pay you, you get rid of the compromising material (or w/e they're blackmailing you with). Except no, you paying them just stokes the fire, because they see they can make more money off of you, so they'll come around again, demanding payment. You lost out on paying the first demand, and literally nothing changed.
Same goes for paid services. You'd think that switching from a free service structure (where your data is being sold to support the upkeep of the service), to something paid, would mean that they don't sell your data anymore, right? Well, why on Earth would they NOT sell your data when they can make money off of it?
Most companies, especially VC-funded ones, won't care about long term. You can always rope in users with flashy new stuff, discounts, promotions, and users are not likely to leave, even if you push them to the edge of acceptability of abuse (here, I'm considering sale of your private data, especially if you're a paying customer, abuse), simply because it's more comfortable to just accept it rather than try to find another service that fits your needs, move all your stuff over, etc. - plus, there's no guarantee that this new service won't change business practices in the future and start selling your data (or abuse your customership in a different way).
This is why the whole pro-capitalist argument "well just pay for it and they won't sell your data" is bollocks. In a capitalist market, there's absolutely no incentive for a company to stop making as much profit off your back as they can. There's no incentive to "provide a fair service for a fair price", but there's LOTS of incentive to "provide bare minimum services at the highest price a majority of the customers are willing to pay, one way or the other". The only way to fix this is via regulations, but that stifles "innovation" (and by "innovation" I mean the padding of the pockets of the investors).
Re: Start Paying for Internet Stuff
#10no thanks, I'll always pick free and ad-supported
Same but I grew up in the Kazaa era. Never pay for software.
I don't think it's about one model being inherently better than the other. It's just different and you may want different things for different products.
I don't care if I'm seeing an ad when reading your recipe on your blogpost. Put ads in my operative system and I'll flip out and jump to your competitors.
Blanket statements that say advertising is bad in the name of privacy is plain ridiculous and this kind of thinking is responsible for regulations which made ads way less effective and drove the revenue from advertising down.
This in turn results in less freedom.
If EU regulations make ads unprofitable, I don't have the freedom to pick ad-supported software anymore over paid solution.
Not to mention the usability issues with all those damn popups.