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Subject: 
Re: Lego Maniac's Webring and Yahoo
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Mon, 18 Sep 2000 22:49:23 GMT
Viewed: 
224 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
Here's a quandary, though. Web rings cost money. I don't want to pay. I want
to get some advertiser to pay by seeing his ads. It's not fair to ask Tim or
Todd to pay, is it?

Webrings shouldn't cost that much money.  It's not a portal service (in the
current industry sense of the word).  It's simply a linked-list collection of
Web site URLs and descriptions, nothing more.  If it gets really expensive,
then it's not implemented properly.

I want to remain part of the community and stay in the ring. Should I have to
pay in order to satisfy *your* desire not to see ads? (and your definition of
what porno is...) We're talking of fractions of a cent here but this is about
principle.... :-)

Ouch.  ;-)

Here's a principle:  Communities have costs.  I don't think you can show me
even one free community.  Even if you don't give Todd any money (though we
know you have), the cost of maintaining a community such as LUGNET includes
time, effort, and stress on Todd's part -- not to mention you as a consumer of
LUGNET agreeing to abide by the ToS.  There's *always* a cost, and that's just
tough noogies.  Personally, I'd rather pay a small monetary fee than put up
with Yahoo.

Having said that, I don't really think that this is about cost.  The principal
of the matter is, ultimately, that we as a community should have some level of
control over these services.  If we can't control them, what's the purpose of
using them?

[If you don't like ads, you shouldn't (1) use advertiser supported
services. ]
1 - be *forced* to, in the case of the ring thing, in order to stay part of a
community... but the flip side of that is are you willing to personally pay
for some share of the web ring(2) related hosting work? It does add additional
costs to LUGNET or wherever it lives, which is why I am OK with using an
advert supported service for it. *You* are prepared to pay in kind by doing
some web work, but that's the same as money. Time is money, after all.

Hmmm.  We're really looking at two costs here.  With something like this, the
majority of the cost (time, money) will be up front with the implementation,
leaving little expense (except for rent, more on that later) in the
maintenance.

Would you have users pay during the maintenance period to help offset the
implementation, only to have it "paid off" shortly?  If so, would you then
discontinue user fees, as they are no longer needed?

Or, would you take one-time donations to offset the implementation costs and,
say, a year's worth of rent on the server, leaving a service with no or low
monetary cost for the users?  LUGNET seems to be working fine this way.  Since
moving the Webring stuff away from Yahoo is something I agree with, I'd vote
with my checkbook for the up-front costs.  (1)  Since it's not something you
agree with, you wouldn't need to -- but you still get to use the service if
and when it does move.

Um, pretty rambling and chaotic argument on my part.  Please poke holes in it.

2 - is Web Ring a trademark? I dunno. What else can you call it, though?

Yep.  Dunno.

Cheers,
- jsproat

1.  Assuming the money transferred from my bank account last week eventually
ends up in my Paypal account -- grrr...&*!@#^$!@#^*&^



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Lego Maniac's Webring and Yahoo
 
(...) Check. The above is one of my fundamental axioms! EVERYTHING has a cost. The cost may not be visible to some participants but it is there. TANSTAAFL! Wishing away cost won't make it go away, there are no free goods. (...) Right, and I'd rather (...) (24 years ago, 19-Sep-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Lego Maniac's Webring and Yahoo
 
(...) Which is the definition that counts. (...) Yes, I suppose. But I do it from a screen that i'm not looking at anyway (I'm doing it right now as I type this... I clicked on an ad and switched away) which makes it only a teeny bit intrusive. (...) (24 years ago, 18-Sep-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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