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A paywall shuts out financially disadvantaged groups and limits the circulation of knowledge. Donations don’t, however annoying the banners are. Whether overly

by oefrha 5y ago

A paywall shuts out financially disadvantaged groups and limits the circulation of knowledge. Donations don’t, however annoying the banners are. Whether overly abundant donations are misallocated is a completely orthogonal issue. Note that I’m not saying we are entitled to anything; but slapping the MDN brand on a premium subscription service does tarnish the original brand a little.

feanaro 5y ago
But as far as I understand the source article, MDN Plus is not a paywall to the type of content that is already on MDN. What's going to be behind a paywall are a kind of technical essays which are not currently on MDN and some convenience features. Is my understanding incorrect?
- oefrha 5y ago
  That’s why I’m mainly taking issue with slapping the MDN brand over the seemingly not terribly related information service.
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Zababa 5y ago
On the other hand a paywall may mean that people writing content are the one that gets the money, which creates an healthier ecosystem that doesn't depend on donation of money or time (as opposed to wikipedia). Wikipedia misallocating funds does tarnish the original brand a lot, especially when most people that contribute content are doing it for free.
- oefrha 5y ago
  > Wikipedia misallocating funds does tarnish the original brand a lot Which has nothing to do the donation model. Wikimedia can pay full time content writers if they want to. Mozilla can also use the subscription income to pay CEO comp if they want to. Allocation of funds has close to nothing to do with the acquisition of funds, unless the acquisition comes with a specific mandate, which neither Wikipedia donations nor the subscription service here has.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    You're right, I wrongly assumed that MDN Plus money would stay on MDN Plus or at leasat MDN, but they said nothing of the sort.

by oefrha 5y ago

feanaro 5y ago

But as far as I understand the source article, MDN Plus is not a paywall to the type of content that is already on MDN. What's going to be behind a paywall are a kind of technical essays which are not currently on MDN and some convenience features. Is my understanding incorrect?

oefrha 5y ago
That’s why I’m mainly taking issue with slapping the MDN brand over the seemingly not terribly related information service.
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Zababa 5y ago

On the other hand a paywall may mean that people writing content are the one that gets the money, which creates an healthier ecosystem that doesn't depend on donation of money or time (as opposed to wikipedia). Wikipedia misallocating funds does tarnish the original brand a lot, especially when most people that contribute content are doing it for free.

oefrha 5y ago
> Wikipedia misallocating funds does tarnish the original brand a lot Which has nothing to do the donation model. Wikimedia can pay full time content writers if they want to. Mozilla can also use the subscription income to pay CEO comp if they want to. Allocation of funds has close to nothing to do with the acquisition of funds, unless the acquisition comes with a specific mandate, which neither Wikipedia donations nor the subscription service here has.
- Zababa 5y ago
  You're right, I wrongly assumed that MDN Plus money would stay on MDN Plus or at leasat MDN, but they said nothing of the sort.