Content strike, and why it's really stupid
On the record, I think the whole content strike thing is stupid. Here's my thinking.
For LJ.ru there are ~860,000 accounts, ~630,000 of them are basic accounts, ~76,000 of them are paid accounts. (thank you Brad and Frank)
Ok, stand back, do some math....there's <10% of the users paying for the other 90+%...
LJ US has 1,999,444 active users (14,000,000+ accounts.) It's gone from Brad-->Danga Interactive-->SixApart-->SUP
Maybe they are having a problem commercially supporting this enterprise. Let's be clear here, they haven't taken away the existing free accounts. They haven't forced you to buy anything to use the system. Ads are being experimented with everywhere, facebook invite your friends, corrolating data, tribe ads, MySpace....Ok so MySpace isn't a real player in the arena for lack of functionality. They need to keep the lights on somehow. They've tried to make little "gifts" available for sale...Deal with it or look at ads, get an ad blocker or buy an account. You may say $25 is too much. For everyone who says that, I ask you how much you spend on coffee and coffee related drinks in a month, much less a year.
So let's say, for a second that I agree with the strike and something should be done "Power to the GOATS!" What can I do to a website to make it hurt. Well, they pay for bandwidth, people costs, storage, CPU time....I'm post as much content as I could possibly see my way to post. Pictures, videos, hit F5 on my friends list over, and over, and over again, make really long posts, max my userpics. Basically make it the busiest day on record, and I'd continue to do that for a sustained period from as many places, and as many accounts as possible. (NOT DDOS SCRIPTS... do you hear me Eric? No scripts!)
So, let's look at the other end. If you're LJ...You run arguably the largest blogging site on the web, you've just been told that most of your users are taking Friday off. What do you do? In *MY* world, we A) Throw a party, B) BEER FRIDAY BABY! Everybody gets to go home early, because the system isn't being used. Oh hell, I might even say it's the best day to load a maintenance update that I wanted to test under low load first. Major changes loaded up.
So what I'd like everyone to gather from this is. If you want to "hurt" a brick and mortar establishment, you stop shopping there. If you want to hurt an online store, you stop shopping there. If you want to "hurt" a website that doesn't make any money on the content of the site, charges next to nothing for an account, and pays for the bandwidth and associated costs, use the hell out of it. Furthermore, when planning a "strike" or other similar protest of an entity, understand what hurts it and what helps it.
I'll post on Friday if I would normally, or not, but it will be based on MY whim, not some protest or other.
Comments encouraged, especially if you're on the other side and particularly if you have some hard data I don't have.
For LJ.ru there are ~860,000 accounts, ~630,000 of them are basic accounts, ~76,000 of them are paid accounts. (thank you Brad and Frank)
Ok, stand back, do some math....there's <10% of the users paying for the other 90+%...
LJ US has 1,999,444 active users (14,000,000+ accounts.) It's gone from Brad-->Danga Interactive-->SixApart-->SUP
Maybe they are having a problem commercially supporting this enterprise. Let's be clear here, they haven't taken away the existing free accounts. They haven't forced you to buy anything to use the system. Ads are being experimented with everywhere, facebook invite your friends, corrolating data, tribe ads, MySpace....Ok so MySpace isn't a real player in the arena for lack of functionality. They need to keep the lights on somehow. They've tried to make little "gifts" available for sale...Deal with it or look at ads, get an ad blocker or buy an account. You may say $25 is too much. For everyone who says that, I ask you how much you spend on coffee and coffee related drinks in a month, much less a year.
So let's say, for a second that I agree with the strike and something should be done "Power to the GOATS!" What can I do to a website to make it hurt. Well, they pay for bandwidth, people costs, storage, CPU time....I'm post as much content as I could possibly see my way to post. Pictures, videos, hit F5 on my friends list over, and over, and over again, make really long posts, max my userpics. Basically make it the busiest day on record, and I'd continue to do that for a sustained period from as many places, and as many accounts as possible. (NOT DDOS SCRIPTS... do you hear me Eric? No scripts!)
So, let's look at the other end. If you're LJ...You run arguably the largest blogging site on the web, you've just been told that most of your users are taking Friday off. What do you do? In *MY* world, we A) Throw a party, B) BEER FRIDAY BABY! Everybody gets to go home early, because the system isn't being used. Oh hell, I might even say it's the best day to load a maintenance update that I wanted to test under low load first. Major changes loaded up.
So what I'd like everyone to gather from this is. If you want to "hurt" a brick and mortar establishment, you stop shopping there. If you want to hurt an online store, you stop shopping there. If you want to "hurt" a website that doesn't make any money on the content of the site, charges next to nothing for an account, and pays for the bandwidth and associated costs, use the hell out of it. Furthermore, when planning a "strike" or other similar protest of an entity, understand what hurts it and what helps it.
I'll post on Friday if I would normally, or not, but it will be based on MY whim, not some protest or other.
Comments encouraged, especially if you're on the other side and particularly if you have some hard data I don't have.