7 ms·

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

294 points by maconic 16y ago

ilamont 16y ago
I have content hosted there too and value the "open access" spirit, but would also like to see Scribd develop a viable business model. An alternative is the service will close down and everything -- both free and archived -- will go away. Another question: Besides an archive paywall, what else could the company do to build revenue (such as professional services, print-on-demand, etc.)
- acqq 16y ago
  > I have content hosted there too Can you please or anybody else explain me why you see any added value of scribd at all? I see it only as an annoyance. If I'd like to read a pdf I'd prefer to click on the link and read it, not to go to some suspicious site which demands from me to sign up there only to do what otherwise would be one single click. As far as I know the only "advantage" of the service was to make content infringement easier (a site for documents which is like youtube was for videos), and that the site owners expect people to pay for access to it is hardly surprising. But I like other mechanisms more. My suggestion for everybody who is the owner of his own documents and wants to upload them: host them as the normal files on the normal sites, unless you do want people to pay for access to them.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I don't use it myself, but reasons people I know have used it: 1. They don't have webspace and want to put a PDF somewhere online. 2. They do have webspace, but are worried, possibly unnecessarily, that it'll cost them too much money if they send out a link to a big PDF to a large-ish mailing list. 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. 4. And, yes: They have a PDF that is at best gray-area which they want to distribute without hosting it themselves, like a scan of a book chapter for a reading group.
    - narkee 16y ago
      >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.
      - _delirium 16y ago
        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.
        pts101 16y ago
        They show up inline in Safari and Chrome. If you switch to Firefox, you can install the PDF Plugin to have a non-retarded PDF experience without Acrobat.
        gammarator 16y ago
        Better: use this plugin: http://code.google.com/p/firefox-mac-pdf/ http://code.google.com/p/firefox-mac-pdf/ It uses the native Quartz PDFKit backend.
        blasdel 16y ago
        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.
        gthank 16y ago
        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.
  - ilamont 16y ago
    There are several reasons why I use it: - I can post papers or other documents that other people might value but not otherwise be available, such as court docs, academic papers, etc. - I can embed the documents easily in my blogs (and before at the publication I worked at) - I don't have to worry about hosting. I could easily upload the PDFs to the Web server my school grants me, but after I graduate, it's gone, and I have to find another solution and change the links.
    - acqq 16y ago
      Post "papers of other documents": You can upload them on your free web account (like, Google Sites)? Unless you don't have the right to distribute the documents, they will remain there. Embed: Who really needs embedded PDF? What for? To have it harder to read? Just give me the plain link, thank you. Hosting: See the first paragraph. OK, anybody knows some better reason?
      - jasonlotito 16y ago
        > You can upload them on your free web account (like, Google Sites)? To be fair, that's what he did at the time. This account also had some added features he valued.
        acqq 16y ago
        I see jasonlotito, you write about the main article author. As far as I understood, he tried to use the free university hosting but it was for him "cumbersome" to upload there and to follow the stats. His added values were only easier upload and easier following of the number of "reads." Note however that he does "self publishing" experiment. Enough readers here would be able to make him one click upload script in less than 10 minutes. Ditto for parsing the logs. I don't feel sorry for him for choosing scribd and feeling how he feels now.
        jasonlotito 16y ago
        He was also concerned that after leaving the university, they would take down the docs, and the links to them would then be broken. I'm just wondering how the suggestion to use Google Sites or another free service is any different then using Scribd?
- jakevoytko 16y ago
  One idea: host a simple document conversion service. Pay money, upload a PDF, download an HTML5 page. Lots of documents on the web are better hosted on the creator's servers, like restaurant menus and research papers. I see they have an embeddable API, but (A) they don't push it very hard, and (B) it has a higher barrier to entry than just downloading a webpage. Another idea: Cut out the middleman and sell a "print to webpage" plugin for Windows.
ulf 16y ago
Sometimes, when reading pieces like this, I think it is time that we as internet users reach a certain point in our understanding of entitlement. There are so many services we readily use, most free of charge, while some of them provide a huge service to us. Some even make us money. But if the service providers themselves try to validate their business by making money out of it in some way, we start bitching... I do not especially condone what Scribd is doing here, nor can I say I would have anticipated that behaviour (harvesting interesting content and subsequently making the whole service pay-only is not the dumbest thing ever), but if you take a second when you first start using a service and try to think about the fact that they some day will have to make money, you should be able to get some conclusions. What options does the provider of the service have to make money at all? Which of these options would be ok for me? Which would piss me off badly? And how do I avoid being in a trap like the OP? If one thinks about those questions instead of just feeling entitled to use a service, which might be "free" at the moment, the awakening should not be to abrupt.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- growl 16y ago
  Scribd is not that miserable. They used the free model to pull a lot of buzz and funding.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- pdu 16y ago
  While I generally agree with your points, I don't think they are particularly apt to this article. The guy isn't saying Scribd owes him anything, he even states that he understands they never promised him a free service in perpetuity. But when you make a service available for free and take pride in that fact, harvest your users content, and then suddenly flip over to a paid service without even giving your users adequate notice or tools to opt out I can completely understand how users might feel cheated. Isn't the company partly responsible for creating the sense of entitlement you're talking about?
ianbishop 16y ago
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.
- points 16y ago
  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.
  - inerte 16y ago
    Scribd's HTML5 was about having crawlable (read: show up in Google) content. Nothing wrong with that, btw.
    - points 16y ago
      It's ok, but pdf's already show up in google, and are already readable in browser.
    - acqq 16y ago
      I think it was just about "gaming Google" -- at some point the links to pages on scribd had higher ranks than original pdfs. I consider that more like successful spamming of Google search than long-term feature. How is it now? Do they still have higher rank? I'd consider than that a bug in Google ranking.
  - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
    Their value proposition was to not lock documents away behind a pay wall. Even then they were not doing very well because of all the tag clouds and their irrelevant appearance on search results. They were the first though and do not have much competition. Quite an opportunity for someone looking for an idea.
underdown 16y ago
"readcasting" sounds like an excellent SEO siloing play. Lots of inter-related internal links. Good google-fu.
unohoo 16y ago
Did you try contacting them to clarify ? If so, what was their response ?
- tshtf 16y ago
  He did. From the post: As a courtesy, I sent a prepublication draft of the above post to Scribd's press team and asked for a response. They were kind enough to reply to me pretty quickly with the following
storm 16y ago
I've never seen the appeal of Scribd, and I'm no fan of the direction they seem to be stumbling in, but it seems a bit unfair to dismiss invitations to join a user advisory board and/or come visit them as "not much of a response". Even if both are mere PR exercises, it's an improvement on the kind of content-free hand waving I'd expect from a company desperately seeking profitability.
- BrandonM 16y ago
  Exactly. How can he call this "not much of a response?" As you pointed out, the message said, "I'd also like to extend an open invitation for you to come in and meet the team." To me, that sounds like a free trip to give direct user feedback and have a real chance to make a positive change. Instead, it sounds like Mr. Goldman just wants to bitch. He feels like Scribd used him? Did he not use Scribd? At least Scribd provided value to him (as he indicated); whatever value he provided Scribd, he is now trying to destroy it with this blog post. There was a submission on here last week: If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684732 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684732). I never use Scribd, and I'm not really concerned either way with how successful they are. But I'm starting to get really annoyed with everyone's sense of entitlement these days. Louis CK hit it on the nose with his remark, "How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago." (http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56 http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56 - it's a great clip if you haven't seen it)
  - state_machine 16y ago
    Well, it's "not much of a response" since it doesn't respond to his concerns. Inviting him to give further feedback is great and all, but while it acknowledged his issues with the Archive paywall (just by saying they could tune it -- not with a concrete solution), it completely ignored his privacy complaint about broadcasting reading activity. Basically, it was a response, but "not much" of one.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
thaumaturgy 16y ago
I think there are a few takeaways here: * You have to charge from the very beginning. If you start a free service, and then try to establish a pay system afterward, your users will feel tricked and trapped and they will rebel loudly. Scribd seems to have been in a hurry to get adoption, so they made it free to host documents; as this guy said though, he much preferred hosting with Scribd over doing it manually on his university's web server. That could have been Scribd's value proposition, and a small yearly fee for that probably would have worked OK. * SaaS could get itself in trouble if there are too many incidents like this. I already hear from clients that are concerned about using online services; the most common questions are, "What if they change their terms?", "What if they go away?", and those are legitimate concerns. Many of my clients aren't the most computer-interested people, so if they have concerns like that, then that means that stories like this have penetrated very deep into the consumer market.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > If you start a free service, and then try to establish a pay system afterward, your users will feel tricked and trapped and they will rebel loudly. If you lock behind a paywall things previously available for free, sure. And they'll be right too. An other option is to add features which are only behind a new paywall. Issue then is providing additional services of value and a way for users to discover them.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    Just as a case study, Reddit did exactly that, and their users flipped out. Reddit ended up doing OK with it -- they've made at least enough from it to be able to afford some infrastructure upgrades and at least one new hire -- but there was a pretty vocal not-small group of users that were unhappy about it.
    - 30thElement 16y ago
      The initial response was to flip out, but once people realized reddit wasn't going to switch to a pay-only site the outrage died down. It might have only worked because reddit users/admins try so hard to foster a sense of community, but it seemed to me like reddit showed how to set up a pay service correctly, and people were just too jaded because of sites like Scribd to realize it.
mikecane 16y ago
People 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-terms-of-service/ http://ipadtest.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/scribd-creator-term...
- jacquesm 16y ago
  A whole pile of data on scribd was never uploaded by the original owners though, but by people posting links to pdfs to sites like HN.
  - acqq 16y ago
    Can anybody please tell me why does HN actively support such a site?
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Because YC invested in it.
  - mikecane 16y ago
    I don't doubt there's piracy or unofficial uploading. But Scribd has also made a push to get self-published writers. And they miss the point someone downvoted.
- j_baker 16y ago
  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 cases of people bringing back diapers claiming they were all used beforehand.
  - mikecane 16y ago
ax0n 16y ago
Relevant: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cartoon_the_only_constant.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cartoon_the_only_consta...
- adorton 16y ago
  That's not realistic at all. If Facebook really did that to your car, they wouldn't leave the note.
kingkilr 16y ago
I don't care if they want to establish a paywall, that's there perogative, what I don't like is taking my content, which I uploaded under the belief I'd be able to host it there at no cost to end users (persumably subsidised by ads) and then charging my readers for it. I post my content (mostly slides from talks and such) for readers, I'd probably even pay to put my content there, it's rather convenient.
- dataguy 16y ago
  The last part: Absolutely. They got it the wrong way. I mean - okay - they have the right to establish the paywall. But they are scare off the wrong people: the readers. Why use a service to pay for reading something that the publishers WANT to give me for free? Not enough: Many publishers would pay for it, as it is convenient and absolutely user friendly. This won't work. Well no, actually it will work - but not as a service that proclaims "show your work to the world for free".
jmount 16y ago
This kind of service is just another "Brill's content" type scam.
jacoblyles 16y ago
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.
- al3x 16y ago
  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.
  - daleharvey 16y ago
    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"
    - nkohari 16y ago
      I always thought that Scribd was just a reaction to how awful Adobe's free PDF reader has become.
      - chmike 16y ago
        What is the problem with pdf ? Editing a document in html is too painful.
        pyre 16y ago
        What does that quality of Adobe's pdf reader have to do with the ease of editing documents in html or pdf?
  - robryan 16y ago
kmfrk 16y ago
This reminds me of chi.mp. I recently suspected that my Gmail was hacked, so I clicked maniacally to get to the page where I could reset my password. I discover that my chi.mp account is the back-up e-mail, which is great; the service lets me decide which e-mail address to forward to. I go to chi.mp, think for a minute to remember my password, and get to the e-mail-forwarding screen. The account is set to forward to an e-mail address that is inconvenient (I can't remember the reason), so I remove the forwarding I've set up and--- "Something, something, you need a Pro account to create a forwarding address." What the hell is a Pro account, I think to myself, a thought that is quickly eclipsed by the fact that a) The guys screwed me over without telling me, and b) I have no way of saving my e-mail account from a potential invader, unless I pay these <expletive>s. I have yet to e-mail them and give them shit for it, but I didn't want to let it ruin my week, but I'll be sure to contact them when I can muster the time and energy.
- kareemm 16y ago
  HopToadApp.com did the same to me. About a year ago, I signed up for their free plan. It allowed two users, so I added our lead engineer. Recently, he left and we added another engineer. So I removed engineer #1 and couldn't add engineer #2 unless I paid to upgrade the account. I don't mind paying when it makes sense, but a) HopToad was totally unwilling to grandfather the account, which meant I couldn't add the new engineer, and b) there was no messaging that the plan changed. I found out about it when I tried to add engineer #2. Lame.
moondowner 16y ago
If people put the documents available for download for free, I think they should be left that way, no one likes someone else to makes actions for them without their knowledge. Everybody is surprised when someone tells him "Why have you made the document available for download only via purchase?" If they don't fix this thing soon I'll stop using Scribd completely. Also, a really funny sentence in the response from Scribd: > You’re right that our communication around the Archive should have been more clear. It sounds like, yeah, we know, but we like it this way for now.
aneth 16y ago
I've encountered a few documents that were 1 page application forms for community resources, and all were shocked when those were suddenly behind a rather expensive paywall. I also was really annoyed the first time I noticed some obscure document I read was broadcast to all my "followers." That means I've encountered both of these major beefs myself. I was never a scribd user, but I sure as hell would never use them now. This is not an issue of not charging early - it's expertsexchange all over again.
alexyim 16y ago
I feel that the main issue is the lack of open and direct communication with the users. Sure, making the paywall opt-in by default increases conversions. But you still have to tell the user about it rather have them discover one day that a lot of their documents are no longer being read. That sucks.
folbec 16y ago
if anything is "free", YOU are the product sold.
mmastrac 16y ago
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. To learn how to edit your documents' properties, please see our Writer's Guide. After a couple months your document will return to the Archive, and you can repeat this process to recall it again.
- tzs 16y ago
  Or you can go change the global setting so that none of your documents go into the archive.
  - mmastrac 16y ago
    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.
tzs 16y ago
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.
sscheper 16y ago
That paywall pays for hosting, the platform and the tools that guy used--not to mention the fact that it also pays for hundreds of jobs and fuels the entrepreneurial economy. If that causes a benign blogger to add the service to his or her shitlist, then I think Scribd will live on.
patio11 16y ago
Guys: 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.
- DJN 16y ago
  Well said. This morale of this story is in line with an old adage - Nothing goes for nothing. When you don't pay for a service, you shouldn't expect anything in return. A guarantee of perpetual free access has to be paid for somehow and if they are not making money from ads presumably because nobody's seeing or clicking on them, then all bets are off! You get what you pay for. Next time look for a price tag.
  - papaf 16y ago
    Except that, historically, the internet has been all about getting something for nothing. This is why were using complex modern web browsers for free to view a site that doesn't charge us. Also, Scribd would be nothing without the thousands of hours people have spent uploading content without charging Scribd. The situation isn't as clear cut as you make out.
- Robin_Message 16y ago
  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 start-up" profitability is irrelevant and all they care about is covering their costs whilst increasing their market share? A larger share in a market no-one is actually willing to pay for is not worth more than a smaller one, what with them both being worth nothing and all.
  - gthank 16y ago
    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.
motters 16y ago
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.
noonespecial 16y ago
Getting 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.
maconic 16y ago
Thanks 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-apology-and-immediate-changes http://blog.scribd.com/2010/09/21/the-scribd-archive-an-apol...

294 points by maconic 16y ago

I have content hosted there too and value the "open access" spirit, but would also like to see Scribd develop a viable business model. An alternative is the service will close down and everything -- both free and archived -- will go away. Another question: Besides an archive paywall, what else could the company do to build revenue (such as professional services, print-on-demand, etc.)

acqq 16y ago
> I have content hosted there too Can you please or anybody else explain me why you see any added value of scribd at all? I see it only as an annoyance. If I'd like to read a pdf I'd prefer to click on the link and read it, not to go to some suspicious site which demands from me to sign up there only to do what otherwise would be one single click. As far as I know the only "advantage" of the service was to make content infringement easier (a site for documents which is like youtube was for videos), and that the site owners expect people to pay for access to it is hardly surprising. But I like other mechanisms more. My suggestion for everybody who is the owner of his own documents and wants to upload them: host them as the normal files on the normal sites, unless you do want people to pay for access to them.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I don't use it myself, but reasons people I know have used it: 1. They don't have webspace and want to put a PDF somewhere online. 2. They do have webspace, but are worried, possibly unnecessarily, that it'll cost them too much money if they send out a link to a big PDF to a large-ish mailing list. 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. 4. And, yes: They have a PDF that is at best gray-area which they want to distribute without hosting it themselves, like a scan of a book chapter for a reading group.
  - narkee 16y ago
    >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.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      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.
      - pts101 16y ago
        They show up inline in Safari and Chrome. If you switch to Firefox, you can install the PDF Plugin to have a non-retarded PDF experience without Acrobat.
      - gammarator 16y ago
        Better: use this plugin: http://code.google.com/p/firefox-mac-pdf/ http://code.google.com/p/firefox-mac-pdf/ It uses the native Quartz PDFKit backend.
      - blasdel 16y ago
        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.
      - gthank 16y ago
        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.
- ilamont 16y ago
  There are several reasons why I use it: - I can post papers or other documents that other people might value but not otherwise be available, such as court docs, academic papers, etc. - I can embed the documents easily in my blogs (and before at the publication I worked at) - I don't have to worry about hosting. I could easily upload the PDFs to the Web server my school grants me, but after I graduate, it's gone, and I have to find another solution and change the links.
  - acqq 16y ago
    Post "papers of other documents": You can upload them on your free web account (like, Google Sites)? Unless you don't have the right to distribute the documents, they will remain there. Embed: Who really needs embedded PDF? What for? To have it harder to read? Just give me the plain link, thank you. Hosting: See the first paragraph. OK, anybody knows some better reason?
    - jasonlotito 16y ago
      > You can upload them on your free web account (like, Google Sites)? To be fair, that's what he did at the time. This account also had some added features he valued.
      - acqq 16y ago
        I see jasonlotito, you write about the main article author. As far as I understood, he tried to use the free university hosting but it was for him "cumbersome" to upload there and to follow the stats. His added values were only easier upload and easier following of the number of "reads." Note however that he does "self publishing" experiment. Enough readers here would be able to make him one click upload script in less than 10 minutes. Ditto for parsing the logs. I don't feel sorry for him for choosing scribd and feeling how he feels now.
        jasonlotito 16y ago
        He was also concerned that after leaving the university, they would take down the docs, and the links to them would then be broken. I'm just wondering how the suggestion to use Google Sites or another free service is any different then using Scribd?
jakevoytko 16y ago
One idea: host a simple document conversion service. Pay money, upload a PDF, download an HTML5 page. Lots of documents on the web are better hosted on the creator's servers, like restaurant menus and research papers. I see they have an embeddable API, but (A) they don't push it very hard, and (B) it has a higher barrier to entry than just downloading a webpage. Another idea: Cut out the middleman and sell a "print to webpage" plugin for Windows.

ulf 16y ago

Sometimes, when reading pieces like this, I think it is time that we as internet users reach a certain point in our understanding of entitlement. There are so many services we readily use, most free of charge, while some of them provide a huge service to us. Some even make us money. But if the service providers themselves try to validate their business by making money out of it in some way, we start bitching... I do not especially condone what Scribd is doing here, nor can I say I would have anticipated that behaviour (harvesting interesting content and subsequently making the whole service pay-only is not the dumbest thing ever), but if you take a second when you first start using a service and try to think about the fact that they some day will have to make money, you should be able to get some conclusions. What options does the provider of the service have to make money at all? Which of these options would be ok for me? Which would piss me off badly? And how do I avoid being in a trap like the OP? If one thinks about those questions instead of just feeling entitled to use a service, which might be "free" at the moment, the awakening should not be to abrupt.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
growl 16y ago
Scribd is not that miserable. They used the free model to pull a lot of buzz and funding.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
pdu 16y ago
While I generally agree with your points, I don't think they are particularly apt to this article. The guy isn't saying Scribd owes him anything, he even states that he understands they never promised him a free service in perpetuity. But when you make a service available for free and take pride in that fact, harvest your users content, and then suddenly flip over to a paid service without even giving your users adequate notice or tools to opt out I can completely understand how users might feel cheated. Isn't the company partly responsible for creating the sense of entitlement you're talking about?

ianbishop 16y ago

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.

points 16y ago
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.
- inerte 16y ago
  Scribd's HTML5 was about having crawlable (read: show up in Google) content. Nothing wrong with that, btw.
  - points 16y ago
    It's ok, but pdf's already show up in google, and are already readable in browser.
  - acqq 16y ago
    I think it was just about "gaming Google" -- at some point the links to pages on scribd had higher ranks than original pdfs. I consider that more like successful spamming of Google search than long-term feature. How is it now? Do they still have higher rank? I'd consider than that a bug in Google ranking.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
  Their value proposition was to not lock documents away behind a pay wall. Even then they were not doing very well because of all the tag clouds and their irrelevant appearance on search results. They were the first though and do not have much competition. Quite an opportunity for someone looking for an idea.

underdown 16y ago

"readcasting" sounds like an excellent SEO siloing play. Lots of inter-related internal links. Good google-fu.

unohoo 16y ago

Did you try contacting them to clarify ? If so, what was their response ?

tshtf 16y ago
He did. From the post: As a courtesy, I sent a prepublication draft of the above post to Scribd's press team and asked for a response. They were kind enough to reply to me pretty quickly with the following

storm 16y ago

I've never seen the appeal of Scribd, and I'm no fan of the direction they seem to be stumbling in, but it seems a bit unfair to dismiss invitations to join a user advisory board and/or come visit them as "not much of a response". Even if both are mere PR exercises, it's an improvement on the kind of content-free hand waving I'd expect from a company desperately seeking profitability.

BrandonM 16y ago
Exactly. How can he call this "not much of a response?" As you pointed out, the message said, "I'd also like to extend an open invitation for you to come in and meet the team." To me, that sounds like a free trip to give direct user feedback and have a real chance to make a positive change. Instead, it sounds like Mr. Goldman just wants to bitch. He feels like Scribd used him? Did he not use Scribd? At least Scribd provided value to him (as he indicated); whatever value he provided Scribd, he is now trying to destroy it with this blog post. There was a submission on here last week: If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684732 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684732). I never use Scribd, and I'm not really concerned either way with how successful they are. But I'm starting to get really annoyed with everyone's sense of entitlement these days. Louis CK hit it on the nose with his remark, "How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago." (http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56 http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56 - it's a great clip if you haven't seen it)
- state_machine 16y ago
  Well, it's "not much of a response" since it doesn't respond to his concerns. Inviting him to give further feedback is great and all, but while it acknowledged his issues with the Archive paywall (just by saying they could tune it -- not with a concrete solution), it completely ignored his privacy complaint about broadcasting reading activity. Basically, it was a response, but "not much" of one.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

thaumaturgy 16y ago

I think there are a few takeaways here: * You have to charge from the very beginning. If you start a free service, and then try to establish a pay system afterward, your users will feel tricked and trapped and they will rebel loudly. Scribd seems to have been in a hurry to get adoption, so they made it free to host documents; as this guy said though, he much preferred hosting with Scribd over doing it manually on his university's web server. That could have been Scribd's value proposition, and a small yearly fee for that probably would have worked OK. * SaaS could get itself in trouble if there are too many incidents like this. I already hear from clients that are concerned about using online services; the most common questions are, "What if they change their terms?", "What if they go away?", and those are legitimate concerns. Many of my clients aren't the most computer-interested people, so if they have concerns like that, then that means that stories like this have penetrated very deep into the consumer market.

masklinn 16y ago
> If you start a free service, and then try to establish a pay system afterward, your users will feel tricked and trapped and they will rebel loudly. If you lock behind a paywall things previously available for free, sure. And they'll be right too. An other option is to add features which are only behind a new paywall. Issue then is providing additional services of value and a way for users to discover them.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  Just as a case study, Reddit did exactly that, and their users flipped out. Reddit ended up doing OK with it -- they've made at least enough from it to be able to afford some infrastructure upgrades and at least one new hire -- but there was a pretty vocal not-small group of users that were unhappy about it.
  - 30thElement 16y ago
    The initial response was to flip out, but once people realized reddit wasn't going to switch to a pay-only site the outrage died down. It might have only worked because reddit users/admins try so hard to foster a sense of community, but it seemed to me like reddit showed how to set up a pay service correctly, and people were just too jaded because of sites like Scribd to realize it.

mikecane 16y ago

People 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-terms-of-service/ http://ipadtest.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/scribd-creator-term...

jacquesm 16y ago
A whole pile of data on scribd was never uploaded by the original owners though, but by people posting links to pdfs to sites like HN.
- acqq 16y ago
  Can anybody please tell me why does HN actively support such a site?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Because YC invested in it.
- mikecane 16y ago
  I don't doubt there's piracy or unofficial uploading. But Scribd has also made a push to get self-published writers. And they miss the point someone downvoted.
j_baker 16y ago
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 cases of people bringing back diapers claiming they were all used beforehand.
- mikecane 16y ago

ax0n 16y ago

Relevant: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cartoon_the_only_constant.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cartoon_the_only_consta...

adorton 16y ago
That's not realistic at all. If Facebook really did that to your car, they wouldn't leave the note.

kingkilr 16y ago

I don't care if they want to establish a paywall, that's there perogative, what I don't like is taking my content, which I uploaded under the belief I'd be able to host it there at no cost to end users (persumably subsidised by ads) and then charging my readers for it. I post my content (mostly slides from talks and such) for readers, I'd probably even pay to put my content there, it's rather convenient.

dataguy 16y ago
The last part: Absolutely. They got it the wrong way. I mean - okay - they have the right to establish the paywall. But they are scare off the wrong people: the readers. Why use a service to pay for reading something that the publishers WANT to give me for free? Not enough: Many publishers would pay for it, as it is convenient and absolutely user friendly. This won't work. Well no, actually it will work - but not as a service that proclaims "show your work to the world for free".

jmount 16y ago

This kind of service is just another "Brill's content" type scam.

jacoblyles 16y ago

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.

al3x 16y ago
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.
- daleharvey 16y ago
  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"
  - nkohari 16y ago
    I always thought that Scribd was just a reaction to how awful Adobe's free PDF reader has become.
    - chmike 16y ago
      What is the problem with pdf ? Editing a document in html is too painful.
      - pyre 16y ago
        What does that quality of Adobe's pdf reader have to do with the ease of editing documents in html or pdf?
- robryan 16y ago

kmfrk 16y ago

This reminds me of chi.mp. I recently suspected that my Gmail was hacked, so I clicked maniacally to get to the page where I could reset my password. I discover that my chi.mp account is the back-up e-mail, which is great; the service lets me decide which e-mail address to forward to. I go to chi.mp, think for a minute to remember my password, and get to the e-mail-forwarding screen. The account is set to forward to an e-mail address that is inconvenient (I can't remember the reason), so I remove the forwarding I've set up and--- "Something, something, you need a Pro account to create a forwarding address." What the hell is a Pro account, I think to myself, a thought that is quickly eclipsed by the fact that a) The guys screwed me over without telling me, and b) I have no way of saving my e-mail account from a potential invader, unless I pay these <expletive>s. I have yet to e-mail them and give them shit for it, but I didn't want to let it ruin my week, but I'll be sure to contact them when I can muster the time and energy.

kareemm 16y ago
HopToadApp.com did the same to me. About a year ago, I signed up for their free plan. It allowed two users, so I added our lead engineer. Recently, he left and we added another engineer. So I removed engineer #1 and couldn't add engineer #2 unless I paid to upgrade the account. I don't mind paying when it makes sense, but a) HopToad was totally unwilling to grandfather the account, which meant I couldn't add the new engineer, and b) there was no messaging that the plan changed. I found out about it when I tried to add engineer #2. Lame.

moondowner 16y ago

If people put the documents available for download for free, I think they should be left that way, no one likes someone else to makes actions for them without their knowledge. Everybody is surprised when someone tells him "Why have you made the document available for download only via purchase?" If they don't fix this thing soon I'll stop using Scribd completely. Also, a really funny sentence in the response from Scribd: > You’re right that our communication around the Archive should have been more clear. It sounds like, yeah, we know, but we like it this way for now.

aneth 16y ago

I've encountered a few documents that were 1 page application forms for community resources, and all were shocked when those were suddenly behind a rather expensive paywall. I also was really annoyed the first time I noticed some obscure document I read was broadcast to all my "followers." That means I've encountered both of these major beefs myself. I was never a scribd user, but I sure as hell would never use them now. This is not an issue of not charging early - it's expertsexchange all over again.

alexyim 16y ago

I feel that the main issue is the lack of open and direct communication with the users. Sure, making the paywall opt-in by default increases conversions. But you still have to tell the user about it rather have them discover one day that a lot of their documents are no longer being read. That sucks.

folbec 16y ago

if anything is "free", YOU are the product sold.

mmastrac 16y ago

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. To learn how to edit your documents' properties, please see our Writer's Guide. After a couple months your document will return to the Archive, and you can repeat this process to recall it again.

tzs 16y ago
Or you can go change the global setting so that none of your documents go into the archive.
- mmastrac 16y ago
  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.

tzs 16y ago

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.

sscheper 16y ago

That paywall pays for hosting, the platform and the tools that guy used--not to mention the fact that it also pays for hundreds of jobs and fuels the entrepreneurial economy. If that causes a benign blogger to add the service to his or her shitlist, then I think Scribd will live on.

patio11 16y ago

Guys: 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.

DJN 16y ago
Well said. This morale of this story is in line with an old adage - Nothing goes for nothing. When you don't pay for a service, you shouldn't expect anything in return. A guarantee of perpetual free access has to be paid for somehow and if they are not making money from ads presumably because nobody's seeing or clicking on them, then all bets are off! You get what you pay for. Next time look for a price tag.
- papaf 16y ago
  Except that, historically, the internet has been all about getting something for nothing. This is why were using complex modern web browsers for free to view a site that doesn't charge us. Also, Scribd would be nothing without the thousands of hours people have spent uploading content without charging Scribd. The situation isn't as clear cut as you make out.
Robin_Message 16y ago
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 start-up" profitability is irrelevant and all they care about is covering their costs whilst increasing their market share? A larger share in a market no-one is actually willing to pay for is not worth more than a smaller one, what with them both being worth nothing and all.
- gthank 16y ago
  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.

motters 16y ago

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.

noonespecial 16y ago

Getting 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.

maconic 16y ago

Thanks 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-apology-and-immediate-changes http://blog.scribd.com/2010/09/21/the-scribd-archive-an-apol...