All the free users are screaming about how this destroys RapidShare's reputation and how they'll never use RapidShare again. Here's the thing, though. RapidShare used to care about free users when lots of folks were using it to host illegal files since it would encourage people to pay for faster downloads. As RapidShare is focused more on legitimate files, they don't care about these free users since the free users cost RapidShare money. Even if only 1% were to pay, RapidShare will make far more money off 100,000 paying users than they will off 10,000,000 free ones.
RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
11–20 of 33 posts
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#12I don't understand why people are willing to pay hundreds or a few thousands on a good computer and then expect everything on the internet to be free. I think people need to be more prepared to pay for good services. (Not commenting on the quality of the service in question, I haven't used it in a long time)
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#13They should leave existing users data, if they wanted to keep any respect in the community I'd say. It is sad watching all these companies giving "free" services away, just to remove them again. Don't trust anything free, because nothing really is.
Paying them yourself isn't enough when it comes to file lockers. Their goal is to get not only the original uploaders paying to keep their files online, but also some percentage of downloaders as well. That's why sites like this have countdown timers, bandwidth limits and waiting periods. They're hoping that people will get so sick of the bullshit trying to download your files that they'll spring for a premium subscr…
Most fansub groups stop when the content owners licence the product in the US or simply request that they do so. As to making money that's theoretically possible, but only in the spending all day helping a friend move for a beer is 'making money'.
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#14I had been a long-time premium user of Rapidshare through it's peak in 2007 to 2009 or so. Their service was wonderful (or so it seemed) until almost nobody used it anymore. The business model that Rapidshare held on to is clearly failing them as more and more users are switching to other sites that are either free or not that expensive (Mega, Mediafire, etc.)
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#15They should leave existing users data, if they wanted to keep any respect in the community I'd say. It is sad watching all these companies giving "free" services away, just to remove them again. Don't trust anything free, because nothing really is.
If something is free, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold. I'm consistently amazed by people who are surprised when a free product either (1) switches to a paid model, (2) has service issues or (3) goes under.
>If something is free, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold.
A pithy saying, but not much more. I run a minecraft server for free, are you implying that I sell my players?
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#16And this is why I host my own. Noone else is able to mess with my data.
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
If something is free, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold. I'm consistently amazed by people who are surprised when a free product either (1) switches to a paid model, (2) has service issues or (3) goes under.
>If something is free, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold. A pithy saying, but not much more. I run a minecraft server for free, are you implying that I sell my players?
Out of curiosity, do you have a way of making money off your minecraft server (even if it's just enough to pay for bandwidth)? If not, then that saying still holds for commercial giveaways. Therefore it can probably be supplemented with "(community projects excepted)".
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paying them yourself isn't enough when it comes to file lockers. Their goal is to get not only the original uploaders paying to keep their files online, but also some percentage of downloaders as well. That's why sites like this have countdown timers, bandwidth limits and waiting periods. They're hoping that people will get so sick of the bullshit trying to download your files that they'll spring for a premium subscr…
Most fansub groups stop when the content owners licence the product in the US or simply request that they do so. As to making money that's theoretically possible, but only in the spending all day helping a friend move for a beer is 'making money'.
I think your knowledge might be a little outdated. Now that streaming (and less frequently, retail) rights are being sold before the shows even air, there's very little mid-season dropping due to licensing - the groups that sub airing shows know that they're licensed, and they don't care. DVD/BD rip groups care even less, and they seem to use file lockers a lot more regularly than the actual fansubbers.
As far as profitability, I don't think that most of them are raking in the millions, or even doing it as a full-time job. Most of the profit is on the file locker's side - otherwise they wouldn't be giving payouts in the first place. I suspect that the groups that really push the DDLs probably make enough to pay for hosting and some percentage of the DVDs/BDs they buy. Whether you view that as profit is up to you - but I think it's a little more than getting a beer for helping a friend move.
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#19All the free users are screaming about how this destroys RapidShare's reputation and how they'll never use RapidShare again. Here's the thing, though. RapidShare used to care about free users when lots of folks were using it to host illegal files since it would encourage people to pay for faster downloads. As RapidShare is focused more on legitimate files, they don't care about these free users since the free users c…
Okay, data time:
I created a full-text-search bookmarking app called historious (http://historio.us). It started out as free for everyone, since I just built it for myself and people found it useful, but I quickly had to charge, after realizing that people had more than my 10-20 bookmarks (some people had 80 THOUSAND).
I changed it to 2,000 free bookmarks, and unlimited paid, which worked well. Then I changed it to 300 free, then to 50 free. The reason why I did this is this:
As per my analytics package, on average, it takes less than two minutes for 95% of my users to upgrade to paid. Basically, from what I can see, users register, try it out with one or two bookmarks, then upgrade immediately if they like it. If they don't upgrade then, they are not very likely to ever upgrade.
Thus, it doesn't make sense for me to support free users (this is very expensive, since it stores the entire page for everything you bookmark, twice), so the free tier is more of a "trial" tier now.
I'm not sure how many people who would have upgraded if they'd tried it saw the limit and said "I won't use this, the free limit is too low", but, based on the data (and it sounds reasonable to me as well), they are not many. People reasonably want a short trial run, and then they either upgrade or don't.
Re: RapidShare will delete free users' data over 5GB tonight
#20All the free users are screaming about how this destroys RapidShare's reputation and how they'll never use RapidShare again. Here's the thing, though. RapidShare used to care about free users when lots of folks were using it to host illegal files since it would encourage people to pay for faster downloads. As RapidShare is focused more on legitimate files, they don't care about these free users since the free users c…
Okay, data time: I created a full-text-search bookmarking app called historious ( http://historio.us ). It started out as free for everyone, since I just built it for myself and people found it useful, but I quickly had to charge, after realizing that people had more than my 10-20 bookmarks (some people had 80 THOUSAND). I changed it to 2,000 free bookmarks, and unlimited paid, which worked well. Then I changed it to…
Thanks for providing an interesting data point. I had a few questions I was wondering if you might be able to answer ?
1. How did you deal with existing free users already exceeding your new limits ? (and how did they react) ? 2. Did you see a measurable increase in upgrades after doing this ? 3. Did you see a measurable decrease in free users of the service after doing this ?
Thanks.