This reminds me of what happened at the end of the dot com bubble, where the hasty erection of a paywall usually meant that the death of a site was imminent, and users often did feel "tricked and trapped" or that their community relationships had been violated.
Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
101–110 of 111 posts
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best reason is really so that people who are not that computer literate, that is most people, like a student who does not know much about computers, but has a file that he owns to share, he can put it on there. If someone is literate sufficiently with the internet to know how easy is to get hosting, and how cheap, then really there is no reason.
This is the fundemental fail of scibd and why ive written them off from the start. their value depends on users being ignorant.
Actually a lot of very successful products bet on users being lazy, and a lot of very profitable industries intentionally keep the customers as ignorant as possible.
Both assumptions are common and valid business strategies.
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#103Getting a bunch of people to give your free service content and then suddenly changing policy so that you can charge for that submitted content always felt pretty sleazy to me.
Kind of like raising a bunch of money for starving orphans and then buying yourself a yacht.
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#104People still don't understand all of the things they are agreeing to on sites like this: Scribd Creator Terms Of Service http://ipadtest.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/scribd-creator-term...
Seriously? Do you really read the entire terms of service every time you sign up for a new service? Besides that, just because you have the legal right to do something to your customers doesn't mean it's a good idea. I mean, did you realize that most stores aren't obligated to take back returns? And yet, the biggest company in the world (Wal Mart) is very well-known for taking back anything . There have even been cas…
When it comes to TOS dealing with writing and publishing, yes, I do indeed read the entire TOS. When you go get a job, do you inquire into the terms and conditions?
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, the advantages for people were already described. Scribd provided them with things that they found valuable. You dismissed these things because they weren't valuable for you. When you say: > I'm still curious to learn about the advantages of scibd. You really mean "I'm still curious to learn about the advantages of scibd for me." If you meant what you originally said, your being purposefully obtuse. Indeed, in…
The rest of my line that you omitted when quoting the start of it was: "I admit I don't know why most users use it." Note: most users. If you can't answer, please restrain from trying to make a conflict. The responses like "embed," or "ease of upload," or "read statistics" are actually useful! I'd really like more of such answers, but your answer is both unusable and insulting. When I commented on some of the feature…
There are two things going on. Either you are a not a native English speaker, in which case, I can assume you've misunderstood something I've said, or your are trolling. I'll assume the former.
Within the context of this thread, you initially responded to a post, and, whether intending to or not, you dismissed his reasons for liking Scribd. ilamont gave you three reasons. For example, embedding was one answer. In your immediate reply to my last post, you said:
> The responses like "embed," or "ease of upload," or "read statistics" are actually useful!
However, in your reply to ilamont, you said:
> Embed: Who really needs embedded PDF? What for? To have it harder to read? Just give me the plain link, thank you.
Now, maybe your intention wasn't to be dismissive. Unfortunately, what you said here is dismissive. So, forgive me if I seem like I'm trying to 'make a conflict', but going by your replies, you did seem to start off that way.
Next, you originally said:
> You can upload them on your free web account (like, Google Sites)?
This was again in response to ilamont.
My reply, which basically was in response to this particular part, was
> To be fair, that's what he did at the time. This account also had some added features he valued.
This was in response to your comment regarding ilamont, as well as the original poster, and encompassed both users. Basically, that Scribd provided both of these people with features they liked, and features you were seemed to dismiss as unimportant.
Anyways, my remark was merely to state that they did, in fact, use a free service to upload their documents too. Your suggestion of using another free service is missing the point: they had already done that. It's fairly circular: A free hosting service did something you don't like? Maybe you should have tried a free hosting service.
Our replies quickly degenerated until we reach now, where you are assuming I'm trying to create a conflict. I assure you, I am not.
Now, I want to address this:
> The argument that you can post to scribd and worry less that it will become inaccessible compared to when you upload it to some other site is what scribd themselves already proved to be false.
In hindsight this is true. However, prior to this "proof", it wasn't true.
And maybe this is where our confusion came about. I was speaking within the context of the original poster, as well as the parent commenter. It seemed you were only looking forward, though, this wasn't far from clear in your original reply.
Regardless, it's a silly debate. I apologize if I seemed to be trying to start and argument with you. That was not my intention. However, what you said doesn't follow logically. I can only assume this is because what you wrote and what you meant aren't the same. I blame the internet, and it's failings to communicate effectively.
That being said, if you are a native born English speaker, you're probably nothing more than an obtuse troll.
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#106Guys: you could write your next software for people like this gentleman, or you could write it for a 50 year old woman who pays money for software and services. Choose wisely.
Indeed. I also thought the following comment from Scribd showed what is wrong with their mindset: As a start-up, we're constantly trying to strike the right balance: building products that people love but that also help us make money (to cover server cost and everything else associated with running a company). Umm, surely as a company you are trying to do more than cover your running costs? Or are the saying "As a st…
A lot of people have these things they call lifestyle businesses: if they're meeting payroll and expenses, and loving what they do for a living, they've 100% satisfied their goals.
I'm not sure that's what is going on in Scribd's case, though.
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
>3. For Mac users, where PDFs don't load in a plugin in the browser by default, they want to be able to link to a PDF that opens in the browser instead of popping up an external viewer. FYI, PDFs absolutely load in the browser by default.
Hmm, is that only for Safari? On my OSX machine, Firefox pops up PDFs in an external instance of Preview by default. Presumably I could install the Acrobat plugin, but it doesn't seem to come with it, or to be able to find one already installed on the system. But if Safari does show them inline, then I agree I was wrong about the "default" behavior, since Safari is the default browser.
Firefox on the Mac is a decidedly second-class experience. I still use it from time-to-time because of extensions, but Chrome, and especially Safari, are far more pleasant out-of-the-box experiences.
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
>3. For Mac users, where PDFs don't load in a plugin in the browser by default, they want to be able to link to a PDF that opens in the browser instead of popping up an external viewer. FYI, PDFs absolutely load in the browser by default.
Hmm, is that only for Safari? On my OSX machine, Firefox pops up PDFs in an external instance of Preview by default. Presumably I could install the Acrobat plugin, but it doesn't seem to come with it, or to be able to find one already installed on the system. But if Safari does show them inline, then I agree I was wrong about the "default" behavior, since Safari is the default browser.
[deleted]
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#109Thanks to everyone for the feedback and comments, Scribd just announced they are making changes:
http://blog.scribd.com/2010/09/21/the-scribd-archive-an-apol...
Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
The rest of my line that you omitted when quoting the start of it was: "I admit I don't know why most users use it." Note: most users. If you can't answer, please restrain from trying to make a conflict. The responses like "embed," or "ease of upload," or "read statistics" are actually useful! I'd really like more of such answers, but your answer is both unusable and insulting. When I commented on some of the feature…
There are two things going on. Either you are a not a native English speaker, in which case, I can assume you've misunderstood something I've said, or your are trolling. I'll assume the former. Within the context of this thread, you initially responded to a post, and, whether intending to or not, you dismissed his reasons for liking Scribd. ilamont gave you three reasons. For example, embedding was one answer. In you…
> It's fairly circular: A free hosting service did something you don't like? Maybe you should have tried a free hosting service.
What you failed to recognize was that the nature of the scribd service and the web hosting services I suggested was always fundamentally different and that was visible even then when you claim that they were "the same."
There's no free web hosting service that demands visitors to register to deliver them the web content(!) Scribd always immediately made your original material inaccessible and counted on visitors to sign up just to deliver it to them! So scribd was so obviously worse from the start. After the current development everybody sees that (you write "In hindsight this is true. However, prior to this "proof", it wasn't true.") but even if you wasn't able to see the difference "in context of the original poster" that doesn't give you the rights to behave how you did.
I don't blame the interent, I blame you for making insults instead of trying to argument, but I still won't call you names, even if you deserve it for continuing to do what you do in the post I reply. No, I am not the native speaker but I still believe that's irrelevant to your bad behavior, except if you claim that subtle hints to somebody not being native speaker additionally annoy you, that still doesn't show you in better light.