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Who's doing this to my internet?

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Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#201

Post by eevilspock »

pi-err wrote: post #35
DarkTree wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. What I took away from this article is that, despite everyone being frustrated by the inoculation of ads into our beloved 'free' services, we are still not frustrated enough to actually pay the premium to eliminate these annoyances. It's the old cliche, "you can't have your cake and eat it too".

Or it says that there's an untapped opportunity for low friction, micro-transactions instead of "ads" or full-fledged purchases on unknown websites. It's clear by now that ads are for lazy. If your plan is to monetize your site with ads, today just like 10 years ago, you lost. Edit: surprised by the negativity on her reaction for _hacker_news. She's rebuffed by the $ and time investment for a single song ("unknown we…

I've been thinking about an idea that would solve this for bloggers and other small-time publishers: Readers subscribe to a federation of publishers for, say, 10 or 20 dollars a month. They now get to consume as much as they want on those sites.

After they read an article, they can click either a "worth it", "meh" or "garbage" button. At the end of the month, all subscription fees are distributed to each publisher proportional to their "worth it" votes. This will drive up quality. If "garbage" votes are penalized, it will discourage bad content as well as link-baiting, dishonest titles or any other gaming of traffic.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#202

Post by wolfgke »

golergka wrote: post #190
wolfgke wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Users always talk that they would love to pay. The problem is, they never do. Perhaps there are other reasons than not willing to. Say, for example, in Germany credit cards are not that common (other methods, like SEPA direct debit are used). Or they are in principle willing to pay, but not for the product that is offered (say, because of DRM or watermarks). Or they would pay, but don't trust their credit card numb…

That doesn't really matter for a company that has already raised some money and now desperately looking to get out of red, does it? (I'm not talking about Reddit or any companies in particular right now, just remembering my mind state when I was CEO/Founder: I can almost feel that desperate depression again).

Indeed this matters a lot and is what is called "business model". Just to give a comparison:

a) Users are willing to give away some of their personal data. Unluckily it seems not to be easy (for various reasons that are off topic here) to monetize this asset for many companies so that they can't or have difficulties to use it to get out of the red.

b) Users are willing to give away their money. As I've shown this asset is also not that easy to leverage, thus also not easy to use to get out of the red.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#203

Post by RUG3Y »

I think the reality is that content is just not worth anything anymore. There is SO MUCH content out there. The internet has democratized content creation. Now that anyone can publish content, record an album, what have you, the value of content has dropped to nearly nothing. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. I'm a musician and artist myself, and I think that many artists and musicians feel entitled to success. Essentially, art and music are worthless - they feed no one, they build no bridges. I see no problem with art and music being fragmented into groups of passionate hobbyists with day jobs that produce art for the love of art.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#204

Post by ams6110 »

icebraining wrote: post #7

Another song I loved by an artist I loved was available for sale, but on a tiny third-party music distribution site I'd never heard of, and for $1.50. $1.50 is a lot to pay for a song And then OP wonders why everyone is making free services plastered with ads instead of charging.

I used to pay about that for a 45rpm single back when that was the format for music. Probably closer to $10 in today's dollars.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#205

Post by icebraining »

kogepathic wrote: post #189
icebraining wrote: post #7

Another song I loved by an artist I loved was available for sale, but on a tiny third-party music distribution site I'd never heard of, and for $1.50. $1.50 is a lot to pay for a song And then OP wonders why everyone is making free services plastered with ads instead of charging.

1. Open SoundCloud 2. Open your browser's Developer Tools 3. Navigate to song page 4. Click on network tab in Developer Tools 5. Press the big play logo on the song 6. Look for the request for the MP3 file 7. Save link to computer Honestly, for a rant that detailed about how corporations are ruining the internet, I kinda expected OP to know how to save songs off SoundCloud. The worst part about this "modern web" for…

Firefox for Android can download files from websites using authentication just fine; it uses its own download manager that gets passed the authentication info from the main browser.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#206

Post by gbog »

kogepathic wrote: post #189
icebraining wrote: post #7

Another song I loved by an artist I loved was available for sale, but on a tiny third-party music distribution site I'd never heard of, and for $1.50. $1.50 is a lot to pay for a song And then OP wonders why everyone is making free services plastered with ads instead of charging.

1. Open SoundCloud 2. Open your browser's Developer Tools 3. Navigate to song page 4. Click on network tab in Developer Tools 5. Press the big play logo on the song 6. Look for the request for the MP3 file 7. Save link to computer Honestly, for a rant that detailed about how corporations are ruining the internet, I kinda expected OP to know how to save songs off SoundCloud. The worst part about this "modern web" for…

I came to say that. Don't believe in the cloud. Just own the things you like to consume more than once, just save them on your hard drive, and sync all of it on all your devices. It requires some setup and attention but it works very well. I do need all the pictures of my family on all my devices, I don't need them on a cloud. Same for the music I love.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#207

Post by hueving »

josh2600 wrote: post #162
eevilspock wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair You're putting all the responsibility on the consumer, and none on us, the technologists, the so-called innovators. Where are our innovative powers to come up with alternate busniness models? Where are our backbones to stand up against selling out the internet so that we can get rich quick? B…

I find comments like this to be sorta akin to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalalalala I can't hear you!". Whenever people say "free" in the context of information exchange, my belief is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of information. Information is a proxy for power, and the power comes from asymmetry. If everyone has a level playing field from an information access perspective, y…

The Internet infrastructure has nothing to do with what we are talking about. You actually pay for the infrastructure monthly to your ISP.

Also, your understanding of the point of a business is really flawed. Everyone can have perfect information and businesses can still function just fine. I continue to pay restaurants for food even though I know they are making a profit off me. I do business with businesses that provide value to me. It doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they have secrets.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#208

Post by Kenji »

I panicked. I have over 100 songs saved in my favorites. I want all of them.

How naive, haha. If you love something on the internet, download it. Download EVERYTHING you love (well maybe not child porn, that's illegal ;). There's no other way. Your favourite links break, one by one, it's only a matter of time. Download it to your HDD (space is dirt-cheap) and get a proper backup solution (RAID 1 is convenient vs. mechanical failures). You'll never be bothered by ads and copyright takedowns again.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#209

Post by logfromblammo »

72deluxe wrote: post #130
icebraining wrote: post #7

Another song I loved by an artist I loved was available for sale, but on a tiny third-party music distribution site I'd never heard of, and for $1.50. $1.50 is a lot to pay for a song And then OP wonders why everyone is making free services plastered with ads instead of charging.

I wonder if people give thought to the length of time it takes to learn an instrument, play it well, learn the recording process, record it well, learn the mixing process, mix it well, learn the mastering process, master it well etc. if they are willing to dismiss $1.50 as expensive for a song. In comparison, how much is a cup of coffee or a portion of chips (for us UK types)? How much is a trip to the cinema? It sho…

That hypothesis is not supported by my model of economics.

Price is largely determined by the marginal cost to produce a good, and by the consumers' willingness to pay for it.

If demand is such that consumers are not willing to pay more than the marginal cost of production, the good is simply not produced. Firms with the highest costs drop out of the industry, one by one, until the remaining suppliers can make money again.

Music isn't exactly a fungible commodity, but it's close enough. There is a powerful substitution effect, at the least. If people think $1.50 per track is expensive, then guess what? If you can't sell a track at a lower price, you're going to go out of business. If you drop your quality to lower your costs, then guess what? Consumers will adjust the price they are willing to pay based on that lower quality.

So your implication is backwards. Bargain-barrel quality yields bargain-barrel prices, not the other way around. Lower price expectations yield fewer products on the market, and the survivors will generally have the highest ratio of quality to price.

The musical skills really only come into play when price expectations rise high enough that new entrants to the market can be supported. If people were willing to pay $2 per track, you would need those skills to cash in. The skill requirement is a barrier to entry, not a cost of production.

Re: Who's doing this to my internet?

#210

Post by pavel_lishin »

pi-err wrote: post #35
DarkTree wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. What I took away from this article is that, despite everyone being frustrated by the inoculation of ads into our beloved 'free' services, we are still not frustrated enough to actually pay the premium to eliminate these annoyances. It's the old cliche, "you can't have your cake and eat it too".

Or it says that there's an untapped opportunity for low friction, micro-transactions instead of "ads" or full-fledged purchases on unknown websites. It's clear by now that ads are for lazy. If your plan is to monetize your site with ads, today just like 10 years ago, you lost. Edit: surprised by the negativity on her reaction for _hacker_news. She's rebuffed by the $ and time investment for a single song ("unknown we…

I swear I remember some bank or company generating single-use credit card numbers specifically for this kind of concern.

Did it fizzle out due to lack of use, or improved security on the banks' part, or am I just another victim of the Mandela/Berenstain effect?

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