Comment by gnosis
15 years ago
"As soon as EE introduced the concept of money they forced everybody to think of their work on EE as just that -- work."
This is exactly why I stopped writing reviews on IMDB once they commercialized it, and why I once wrote reviews for Amazon until I thought better of it.
If these people want to make money off of my work, they should pay me.
On the other hand, I happily contributed to Wikipedia -- and would have continued to do so were it not for other reasons (having to do with point-of-view pushers dominating and subverting many of the articles I was interested in contributing to).
This is exactly why I stopped writing reviews on IMDB once they commercialized it, and why I once wrote reviews for Amazon until I thought better of it.
If these people want to make money off of my work, they should pay me.
Playing Devil's advocate, don't you benefit from other people posting reviews? And if so, is it really smart to lose those benefits just to avoid making Amazon or IMDB richer?
I mean, EE was actively making the Internet a worse place, as Jeff has put it - it makes sense to avoid helping them. But Amazon is providing a valuable service by having a place where people can easily share and read each other's reviews, and they don't exactly force anyone to buy the product from them afterwards, so what's wrong with them taking a cut from it?
"Amazon is providing a valuable service by having a place where people can easily share and read each other's reviews, and they don't exactly force anyone to buy the product from them afterwards, so what's wrong with them taking a cut from it?"
I never said there was anything wrong with it. I just said I wouldn't contribute to a for-profit site without getting paid.
"don't you benefit from other people posting reviews?"
I do benefit from other people posting reviews. But, just like Amazon doesn't force me to buy from them, I'm not forcing the reviewers to review for Amazon, nor do I force Amazon to make the reviews available to me.
"And if so, is it really smart to lose those benefits just to avoid making Amazon or IMDB richer?"
I'm not trying to avoid making Amazon or IMDB richer. I'm just saying that if they want me to contribute to a for-profit site, they should pay me.
"...I mean, EE was actively making the Internet a worse place..."
How so? Besides Mr Atwood picking the only available target and hiding his own ignorance of EE's culture, systems and processes behind hyperbole that can charitably be described as Limbaughesque? I don't mind as long as people recognize it for what it is... but if you consider Mr Atwood's (or Mr Spolsky's, for that matter) characterizations as Gospel, then I have some beachfront property in Topeka, KS I'm willing to sell you.
Evil, in my view, is telling you that you're always going to get to use SO at no charge -- and knowing that it isn't true unless the people telling you that can keep convincing other rich people to give them money (in which case it isn't evil -- it's just a very well-played Ponzi scheme).
How so?
By making people lose hours and hours of life (combined) when they clicked on an EE link from Google that lied about the contents of the page. There's a reason why I blocked the site from the search results before I even heard of Jeff Atwood.
if you consider Mr Atwood's (or Mr Spolsky's, for that matter) characterizations as Gospel
No, I just agree with them on that.
Evil, in my view, is telling you that you're always going to get to use SO at no charge
Can you please point out to where they claimed that? If they did and they do start charging for normal use, I agree that it'll be wrong. But Tu quoque is a fallacy, you know?
> I once wrote reviews for Amazon until I thought better of it.
I don't write reviews on Amazon to make Amazon better. I do that to let other people know of a good or bad product, so they can make a better buying decision than me. And I too appreciate when other people tell me when some product is amazing or crappy. Amazon just sells most of the products available for sale on the internet. So no wonder it collects reviews. But reviews is not what Amazon sells. It's just a byproduct.
The line you quote is talking about paying the contributers, not the owners.
You might want to know that wikipedia has paid staff as well.
"The line you quote is talking about paying the contributers, not the owners."
I didn't realize that. But, now that you point that out, I should say that I'm all for contributors getting paid for their contributions -- as long as there were some effective safeguards put in place to keep them from gaming the system.
"You might want to know that wikipedia has paid staff as well."
If they are paid a reasonable wage to maintain the system, from a site that subsists on the donation model, I have no problem with that at all.
A for-profit entity that makes its money from my work is something quite different, however.