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Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#81

Post by jacquesm »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #65

I completely agree with Jacques that they should have been up front with him about the change, shortformblog suggests that they were with them, so perhaps the blog provider wasn't passing along the email? What ever, its annoying I'm sure to wake up and find you've gone commercial! As a web site that gets quite a bit of traffic (blekko.com) It is interesting to see both sides of this conversation. As the 'ops' guy I'm…

The preferred way in which I think plug-in services should work is that they leave older accounts in the state they were when they signed up under some set of terms-of-service and from the moment of changing the TOS can default new sign-ups to have the newer settings enabled.

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#82

Post by icebraining »

eCa wrote: post #48
tarr11 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feeling is that the HN community tends to try and focus on unique and specific details. This quote has become a cliche and doesn't add that much to the conversation.

Like many cliches it is proving itself as being true again and again. So one reason that it (maybe) doesn't add much is that everyone knows it is tue, but doesn't want to think about it.

You can be the product whether you pay or not, and you can not pay and still not be the product (e.g. Wikipedia).

It's a thought-terminating cliché.

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#83

Post by jacquesm »

camus wrote: post #80
jacquesm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you feel if twitter decided to include (for your benefit, of course) a bunch of advertising next to their button after sending you an email about it and defaulting to 'on'. Would that be ok for you or would you feel that that was not what you signed up for when you decided to embed their button tag? I signed up for a 'comment tag', not for an 'advertising tag'. There is a world of a difference between those…

you can stop using their service if you dont like it. I dont understand this sense of entitlement regarding free services. And it is not like disqus did not warn its users , they did. Dont like it ? use something else. > To see that happen without my explicit consent is something that is enough to turn me off from that particular service provider because I can apparently not trust them with the responsibility of not…

> you can stop using their service if you dont like it.

I just did.

> I dont understand this sense of entitlement regarding free services.

This free service just made it look as if I endorse a bunch of companies and decided to change my site from non-commercial to commercial. That's my prerogative.

> And it is not like disqus did not warn its users , they did. Dont like it ? use something else.

They may have warned, I definitely did not receive it, they changed the terms of service post the part where I signed up and defaulted me to behaviour under the new terms of service. That is 'bait-and-switch'.

> then stop using that service , what's the big deal ? did you pay for it ? no. So there is no binding contract between them and you.

Actually, their terms of service bind me and them, sure they can change the terms but those are not the terms that I agreed to when I signed up and I don't go around checking the terms of service every 3 days to see if someone is up to something sneaky.

Whether I paid for it or not is not material.

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#84

Post by res0nat0r »

jacquesm wrote: post #64
bpatrianakos wrote: post #44

I have to disagree even as someone relying on Disqus in a few different ways. First off, they did provide notice. I received an email about this at all the addresses I have an account under. Maybe the the author didn't and that sucks but this seems like an edge case and he is one of the exceptions, not the rule. Second, you can turn this feature off which brings me to my next point. Even if they do decide to change t…

How would you feel if twitter decided to include (for your benefit, of course) a bunch of advertising next to their button after sending you an email about it and defaulting to 'on'. Would that be ok for you or would you feel that that was not what you signed up for when you decided to embed their button tag? I signed up for a 'comment tag', not for an 'advertising tag'. There is a world of a difference between those…

Thats the tradeoff you have to deal with if you want to use a free service.

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#85

Post by bane »

The real problem is the tech world's lack of an ability/strategy to come up with a sustainable revenue generating business model before hooking (crack-like) millions of users to their service.

Users get used to these free world-class services and when the companies inevitably have to come up with a way to stop flushing investor money down the toilet, users bristle at this.

The bigger problem is this, in a world of free services, how is a service with a sustainable business model supposed to compete? As a user I'd rather use them, but they simply can't exist in this kind of artificially created economic ecosystem (steel dumping comes to mind).

I'd say "buyer beware" but we're not exactly the buyer here are we?

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#86

Post by jacquesm »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #76
jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever it was that I thought I signed up for, I explicitly did not sign up for an advertising tag, especially not a stealthy one, and on top of that not one that looks like an active endorsement on my part.

You agreed to their terms and conditions upon sign up. It says: "We may, without prior notice, change the Service;"

And my terms of service read 'and if you change your terms of service in a way that I don't like I will disable your plug-in and I'll bitch about it'.

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#87

Post by booruguru »

I don't understand why people scream bloody murder when businesses attempt to make money off of something they give away for free.

Of course they have to run ads.

And while it's bit of a grey area to display ads as "recommended content"...Disqus hardly invented this practice. And based on the design and colour scheme, it's fairly obvious that the "recommended content" links are part of the Disqus widget (and generated, provided by Disqus).

On second thought, I can imagine the average user is not savvy enough to make see this distinction. But I honestly don't care. If you hate ads so much, open up your wallet and pay the "true" cost of your free lunch.

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#88

Post by sheraz »

sudonim wrote: post #61

@jacquesm I felt the same way and got mad at disqus when I saw they did that without my consent. I turned off the "feature" and started looking for alternatives. Vanilla Forums looked like it provides a neat option to serve the same purpose (embedded comments hosted elsewhere) http://vanillaforums.com/tour/turn-drive-by-blog-commenters-... I didn't end up setting it up and have just had the disqus nonsense turned off…

I came here to say the same thing. It seems to have the same functionality except your users have to signup either on your site or through some oauth I believe.

Re: Disqus bait and switch, now with ads

#90

Post by mseebach »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
mseebach wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think the ‘you are not the user, you are the product’ meme should die. It does a dis-service to the complexity of the situation and it masks some much more serious issues with online monetization models, and online privacy in general." http://jacquesmattheij.com/you-are-not-the-customer-you-are-... Meta: I went googling for this article, know I'd read it, but not where. I found the coincidence of the author quite…

I never expected to see that make the jump from 'end user of a service' (say twitter, facebook, google) to 'end user of a plug-in' or SAAS product. Silly me, I guess I should have seen it coming.

I didn't post it to taunt you, I posted it as a response to the GP. I think that your point about the meme still stands fine, regardless of having to throw out some services that misuse your trust.

That said, I think you're overreacting. Fair enough that you feel screwed by Discus, but making the leap that you can never have any third party javascript because they might screw you in the future is a bit much, I think. At some point you'll have to trust someone.

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