Digital BW, The Print

Robbe Gibson wrote:

>
> Maybe the fundamental question might be:  Is the information provided
> by this group worth enough to me that I would pay some fee to receive
> it?  Is it worth $1.00/month?  Is it worth $12.00/year?(Same money
> but it sounds worse) Is it worth $20.00/year?  What would the list
> membership be if members were required to pay ANYTHING to receive it?

To some extent, I agree with you.. certainly, the service must be "paid 
for somehow"  A few points though...

1)  Yahoo! has been showing a profit..

2)    They are apparently seeking to maximize the bottom-line, 
apparently to strengthen themselves for the next round of buyouts and 
mergers.. not to provide better services or better the company

3)    No-one forced YAHOO! to purchase e-groups, as an example..

The problem, as I see it today,  is as follows...

Yahoo got told in no uncertain terms by listmembers
that they would NOT  pay for the privilege of being spammed... Yahoo is 
not simply interested in making a profit, they are interested in
short-term profit, and maximizing markup.. Elsewise, they might have
offered a paid (advertising free) membership to list members, as well as 
an advertising supported one.. Instead, they proved their own greed (or 
stupidity in being unwilling too truly chance altering the paradigm)  in 
wanting BOTH the advertising and the fees..  They boxed themselves in 
like an attorney who goes only for murder one, when manslaughter might 
 be an available charge, only to find the jury acquitting the
defendant.,..  That kind of idiocy cost Napoleon Moscow too..

No-one begrudges them revenue, but do you think they might even TRY to 
coordinate advertising with list content?

Wouldn't ads from EPSON, MediaStreet, TSS, Lyson, Luminos, Canon, etc. 
get more clickthroughs on this list than do the random ads we get now?

Instead, we get adds for X10 wireless cameras, credit repair,
scholarships, cd's, whatever...  They have naturally targeted lists and
yet they use birdshot from a blunderbuss to target their advertising..
 Talk about "not a clue!"

The fact is, they want a quick and easy, no-effort way to make an
assured revenue stream.. That doesn't exist in any business.. It existed 
for a brief time in the dot-com lands, but not today...  

If they don't tailor their ENTIRE model to the real world, it won't 
work.. Right now they are only apparently focused upon the short-term 
cash-flow without doing the obvious things I mentioned about advertising 
etc.. You don't advertise Geritol on the Cartoon channel or Nick at 
Night... they seem to be at a loss when it comes to learning some of the 
basic lessons traditional media have known for years..

>
> Is the information on this or any other group worth more than what is
> presently being paid?
> If so, there are lots of options and all of them are more or less
> spam-free and ad-free.

Such as?

Which of those options preserves the current  group oriented format, 
prevents spam abuse and culling of names, and has the same real-time 
response cycle. And there is no guarantee that any hosted service will 
remain ad/spam free.  Clearly YAHOO is trying to redefine the paradigm 
unilaterally... If they succeed unimpeded, others will follow suit..

>
> If not, live with it as you are getting what you paid for.
>
>
But that is inaccurate... We have all already paid for past service by 
enduring the advertising becoming more and more intrusive, e-mail spam, 
etc.. And that would be a FAIR choice if people knew about the changes 
to their user and group preferences..  It's not at all fair when YAHOO! 
makes those changes in a covert and underhanded manner.

The issue is, like any in marketing,  what cost is the market willing to 
bear?

Complaints, etc.. tell the marketers where the boundaries are and how to 
take that into account when looking at cost/profit ratios.. One doesn't 
simply "vote with one's feet and leave"  as Harry Truman said.  There is 
feedback in the process other than simple numbers..

Basically what we have here is a cultural clash..

Those who think that information when given by the compiler/expert for 
free should remain so (the old net paradigm) vs. a new paradigm in which 
everything one puts out can be resold by someone else..

Not just the group info, but look at YAHOO! adding the option to allow 
ppl to buy prints made from files in the photo section... Did they set 
that up so that only owners of the images could initially do so, unless 
settings were changed by said owner... Nope..

As for bandwidth costs, there is a current substantial glut of 
bandwidth.  The problem is that many, perhaps including YAHOO, invested 
in bandwidth at pre-recession prices and now are stuck paying off those 
capital expenditure over-investments in leaner times (and times in which 
the bandwidth is worth much less on today's market)..  

I could go on, but I will close here for now..

[Keith]
 
 




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