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Nor is it my first thought. But, nobody's asking me to pay to use the lawn in that case, so I don't find it a particularly compelling analogy. If the sign sai

by meej 14y ago

Nor is it my first thought. But, nobody's asking me to pay to use the lawn in that case, so I don't find it a particularly compelling analogy. If the sign said something like "Please pay $1 to use the lawn" I might find it similarly insulting, or at the very least, I would question the intelligence of the person who put it up. The paywall is not much of a deterrent and circumventing it isn't terribly annoying, either. While I am sure there are plenty of people who pay for a subscription because they feel the content is worth the money, I would guess that there are far more who pay because they lack the computer literacy to know how to edit the address bar in their browser. I find it distasteful to make money off of others' ignorance, and i find it insulting because the success of the business model hinges on the hope that we are all that ignorant.

jasonlotito 14y ago
> If the sign said something like "Please pay $1 to use the lawn" I might find it similarly insulting, or at the very least, I would question the intelligence of the person who put it up. But you are using the lawn. Keep that in mind. You are demanding they enforce their pricing scheme. You're effectively the kid who ignored the "Please take only 1" sign above the bowl of candy on Halloween. If you don't find that analogy compelling, don't bother commenting. Those types of comments are, in essence, "Well actually"-type posts which are insulting to the community here.
stdbrouw 14y ago
> I would guess that there are far more who pay because they lack the computer literacy to know how to edit the address bar in their browser. It's probably a mixture of people that would cheat if they knew how and people who simply choose to be honest. It's hard to ascertain how big each of those categories is. Compare the NYT with Adobe here. They both have lousy protection against piracy because they see piracy as the lowest tier in a price discrimination scheme. Poor student who can't pay? Sure, go ahead and circumvent whatever barriers we've put up. Can pay? Then do. In any case, I don't find "if only people were smarter, they could cheat more" to be a very compelling argument.
- meej 14y ago
  That's not the argument I was making. I would much prefer that NYT make it harder to get in, and not assume their customers are idiots.

by meej 14y ago

jasonlotito 14y ago

> If the sign said something like "Please pay $1 to use the lawn" I might find it similarly insulting, or at the very least, I would question the intelligence of the person who put it up. But you are using the lawn. Keep that in mind. You are demanding they enforce their pricing scheme. You're effectively the kid who ignored the "Please take only 1" sign above the bowl of candy on Halloween. If you don't find that analogy compelling, don't bother commenting. Those types of comments are, in essence, "Well actually"-type posts which are insulting to the community here.

stdbrouw 14y ago

> I would guess that there are far more who pay because they lack the computer literacy to know how to edit the address bar in their browser. It's probably a mixture of people that would cheat if they knew how and people who simply choose to be honest. It's hard to ascertain how big each of those categories is. Compare the NYT with Adobe here. They both have lousy protection against piracy because they see piracy as the lowest tier in a price discrimination scheme. Poor student who can't pay? Sure, go ahead and circumvent whatever barriers we've put up. Can pay? Then do. In any case, I don't find "if only people were smarter, they could cheat more" to be a very compelling argument.

meej 14y ago
That's not the argument I was making. I would much prefer that NYT make it harder to get in, and not assume their customers are idiots.