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Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

blog.ericgoldman.org

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Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#71

Post by matwood »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #43
ajscherer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would flip that around on you: I think it is time that companies reach a point in their understanding of users' reaction to the bait & switch. The value of your service to a user isn't going to increase simply due to the passage of time or growth of your site. If they wouldn't pay for it on day 1, the odds are they won't pay for it after 2 years of using the service. If, in the process of trying to monetize your se…

> I think it is time that companies reach a point in their understanding of users' reaction to the bait & switch. For real. This always reminds me of the dude who tries to be friends with the girl so he can eventually date her, instead of simply asking her out, and risking the 'No' like a man. Slimy.

It's also the wrong way to go about because once you end up on the friends ladder it's almost impossible to cross the abyss. ;)

http://www.laddertheory.com/ladderconstruction.htm

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#72

Post by tzs »

In the time it took him to write his rant, he could have clicked the checkbox to make all of his old content available for free again.

When you use a free service, you have to expect them to need to make money somehow--and that means you should expect them to try changing the mix of what is free and what is paid now and then, and changing defaults. Accordingly, you should expect that on occasion you might have to change settings in order to get the thing to work the way you like.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#73

Post by inerte »

points wrote: post #28
ianbishop wrote: post #4

I can't actually believe that they would go the paywall route. It honestly seemed a few months ago when they added HTML5 support that they were going in a really great direction and now I will avoid them like the plague.

I think the whole HTML5 thing was a big PR exercise to improve the way they are seen. Possibly also a big play to get acquired - "We're doing cool stuff with fonts! Buy us!". Fundamentally though, they're about locking away documents behind a pay wall. And personally, I don't see their value proposition at all.

Scribd's HTML5 was about having crawlable (read: show up in Google) content.

Nothing wrong with that, btw.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#74

Post by crystalis »

dinedal wrote: post #45
crystalis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like Scribd would solve more problems if they let uploaders pay to give their readers free access. I'm not the Scribd user; the guy publishing with them is.

Scribd would rather increase the amount of content on it's servers by making uploading easy and free. While the guy that publishes the article is really the Scribd user, he can publish elsewhere if the price makes it too much of a hassle. The viewer has less of a choice, if it's only published on Scribd it's either pay up or go without. I don't agree with their choice (or methods) but it makes sense for them to do th…

I meant to suggest a strict superset of their current system- keep uploading easy and free, and the reader or publisher can pay for access after the "free" period. Scribd seems to have had a pretty large hook in this guy- I'm sure he's not the only one.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#75

Post by tzs »

mmastrac wrote: post #69

From the FAQ (this is crazy): Your documents will automatically be entered into the Archive after an initial period of time. You can recall a document from the Archive by opening the document's properties, clicking the Archive Status tab, then clicking the Recall from Archive command. If a document's properties page doesn't have an Archive Status tab, then that document has not yet been placed into the Scribd Archive…

Or you can go change the global setting so that none of your documents go into the archive.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#76

Post by mmastrac »

tzs wrote: post #75
mmastrac wrote: post #69

From the FAQ (this is crazy): Your documents will automatically be entered into the Archive after an initial period of time. You can recall a document from the Archive by opening the document's properties, clicking the Archive Status tab, then clicking the Recall from Archive command. If a document's properties page doesn't have an Archive Status tab, then that document has not yet been placed into the Scribd Archive…

Or you can go change the global setting so that none of your documents go into the archive.

Conveniently not mentioned in the FAQ.

I changed it for my own account only after reading the article. Funny enough, it's an inversely-worded checkbox in there (unlike all of the other options):

[ ] Do not include my documents in the Scribd Archive program. Learn more.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#77

Post by al3x »

jacoblyles wrote: post #37

Early Scribd broke the web by taking open format documents, putting them in a proprietary wrapper, and calling it a "service". Middle Scribd fixed their own brokenness by moving to HTML 5 (which is sometimes more convenient than a PDF, and is certainly "open" and accessible). Late Scribd is again breaking the web by moving documents behind a paywall. Some qualities are just baked into a company's DNA.

Thank you. I've never understood why Scribd exists at all. The web has done fine at moving documents around before Scribd, and it'll keep doing it fine long after they disappear.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#78

Post by blasdel »

_delirium wrote: post #31
narkee wrote: post #27

Earlier 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.

Hilariously, the official Acrobat plugin now only works in Safari on OS X — the only browser that absolutely does not need it. I think the change happened during the Intel transition, so you can't easily use an old version either.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#79

Post by points »

inerte wrote: post #73
points wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole HTML5 thing was a big PR exercise to improve the way they are seen. Possibly also a big play to get acquired - "We're doing cool stuff with fonts! Buy us!". Fundamentally though, they're about locking away documents behind a pay wall. And personally, I don't see their value proposition at all.

Scribd's HTML5 was about having crawlable (read: show up in Google) content. Nothing wrong with that, btw.

It's ok, but pdf's already show up in google, and are already readable in browser.

Re: Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

#80

Post by daleharvey »

al3x wrote: post #77
jacoblyles wrote: post #37

Early Scribd broke the web by taking open format documents, putting them in a proprietary wrapper, and calling it a "service". Middle Scribd fixed their own brokenness by moving to HTML 5 (which is sometimes more convenient than a PDF, and is certainly "open" and accessible). Late Scribd is again breaking the web by moving documents behind a paywall. Some qualities are just baked into a company's DNA.

Thank you. I've never understood why Scribd exists at all. The web has done fine at moving documents around before Scribd, and it'll keep doing it fine long after they disappear.

emailing pdf's is not my definition of "doing fine", I am not following the current drama much, but I do thank scribd for letting me look at content I would have otherwise ignored on seeing ".pdf"
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