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New site feature: comment response notifications

Posted Feb 8, 2004 23:41 UTC (Sun) by siesel (guest, #5021)
Parent article: New site feature: comment response notifications

To differenciate between subscriber levels is ok and fully understandable.

But the first two reasons ("$5 is no longer very much money..." and the "job situation" commet) are a shame for LWN.

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Posted Feb 9, 2004 10:35 UTC (Mon) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

I agree. It's flippant, and it's stupid. Current inflation-rates are single-digit more or less in the entire world (where I live we've actually got deflation at the moment), thus $5 is, infact, almost exactly as much money now as it was when subscriptions where first introduced.

That said, you get the same value for it now as you did back then, also from Lwn. Introduction of newer features to those who pay more in no way takes away from your value.

I'm with the skeptical ones on this one though. Before it was can I afford to, and would I like to, support Lwn more? (in the moment, the answers for me are no, yes, inspite of living in western europe.) With this change, I fear that more people will instead start to think; Are those extra features worth the extra money ?.

Problem is, either the answer to that is "no", or else you're excluding our poorest members from significant parts of the site. Personally, I will certainly upgrade my subscription the day I get a job. But I'd do so because Lwn deserves it. Because I'd like the nice people who produce this to get a raise. Because I'd like them to some day be able to hire more people. I'd *not* do it for some extra features, and infact I'd strongly dislike a Lwn that separates between it's readers baced on economical possibilities.

A reader from the USA that pays $60 pays 0.15% of average yearly income. A reader from India that pays the same is paying 2.6% of the average yearly income, in other words almost 20 times as big a part of his salary. That is the equivalent of an American paying $1000. How many do you honestly think would do that ? Don't you think it's a bit arrogant to say "it's not much money" ?

At the very least, please consider a "Readers from countries with a GNP/person under $10K gets all features even at the cheapest rates"

Yes I know, Lwn doesn't have many paying readers from such countries, but atleast it's a nice gesture. One of the nice things about Free Software is that people from poorer countries can play along on a level field where your ability to contribute is not limited by lack of cash. I would want Lwn to be the same way.

The value of $5

Posted Feb 9, 2004 15:52 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

When we started the subscription scheme, $5 cost the better part of €6. Now it's rather closer to €4. Given that over 60% of our readers are outside of the US, I'd say that $5 is, in fact, less money now to the bulk of them.

What I was really trying to do was to post some snide comments about our currency and our president. This was always the wrong soapbox for that sort of stuff, of course.

The value of $5

Posted Feb 10, 2004 13:48 UTC (Tue) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

That is true. Compared to some countries, the Us dollar has indeed lost some value.

Still, $5/month is a lot of money to a pretty large part of the world-population. More than 5 billion of the poeple in the world have not yet selected ANY operating-system, personally I would like Linux to be a viable choise for atleast some of those.

Personally, I think you, and all the other Lwn-people *deserve* a LOT more cash than you're presently getting. I can't with the most positive guesses imagine you're getting more than half of what you're worth. For Lwn to seek more income is natural and healthy. I've got no problems with that whatsoever.

I only wish that it'd be possible to do so without coming off as snotty. Without shutting out people from poorer countries. Without sounding as if "everyone" is doing well. (when infact I'm sure the Lwn staff is well-aware that many are still without work.)

Fact is, to a average person living in a rich country, and having a job, Lwn is cheap. To pretty much anyone else it's not.

The value of $5

Posted Feb 11, 2004 14:12 UTC (Wed) by larsga (guest, #2801) [Link]

These two things sounded a wrong note for me, too. I accept your explanation, but even had you made it clear that this was your intention (which would have helped) I would have preferred not to see this. One thing I've always liked about LWN is how you've consistently (well, mostly) avoided any reference to issues irrelevant to LWN's subject area. I can still remember the pleasant surprise of reading the 2001-09-13 edition, with no reference whatsoever to the events two days before. I'd much prefer to see this continue.