US Cord Cutters Getting Snubbed From NBC's Olympic Coverage Online 578
Monoman writes "The Washington Post reports, 'The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics start tonight. But if you're among the 9 percent of U.S. households who have broadband but don't subscribe to paid television, it will be nearly impossible to (legally) watch the games online this year. ... That's because while NBC is streaming all of the events live online, full access to the livestream will only be available to paying cable subscribers. And thanks to a $4.38 billion exclusive deal NBC struck with the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in 2011 for the privilege of broadcasting the Olympic games in the U.S. through 2020, cord-cutters don't have a lot of options.' Is this a money play by Comcast/NBC to get some subscribers back? Should the FCC step in and require NBC to at least provide a stream of their OTA content?"
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
And why is it that you are owed free content?
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm aware, you can still get it by antenna. So, there you have your ad supported NBC version for free.
I don't know what that has to do with making the same content available online.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Some people can't receive OTA because of obstacles or because they're too far from the station. But they're being greedy, pure & simple.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
NBC paid the IOC over a billion dollars for the rights to show these games. They're spending millions and millions of dollars to produce and broadcast events on the other side of the world.
You're demanding to watch them on the device of your choosing for free.
And NBC is "being greedy, pure and simple"?
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Every "distributor" should go bust - you are redundant, and have been for over a decad
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I suspect that NBC doesn't stream it because their contracts with cable and with the local TV stations prevents it, since streaming breaks both of those models.
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I think the question is, will the advertising on an internet stream cover the cost with similar profitability as over the air (or cable) broadcast? If so, they might as well stream the OTA content as well. Since they don't do that, there are a few possibilities: they aren't getting as much for the streamed ads as they do over broadcast and cable; or their deal with the cable companies demands that they not stream. I expect the latter. Cable doesn't make nearly as much money from packets as they do from
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The Olympics stopped being about amateur sports a long time ago.
It's never actually been about "amateur sports" in anything other than name and some niceties to dress the illusion. It's always been a contest of international/inter-cultural/ideological propaganda campaigns, international one-upsmanship, and a sort of warfare without armies.
Now, it's just an ultra-commercialized piece of garbage. I'm glad I don't have to be subjected to it online, and even happier that the information superhighway won't be slowed down by all those big trucks full of Olympics video interne
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
But they're being greedy, pure & simple.
Oh, I get being greedy. Greedy is when you do something unpleasant in exchange for making more money, right? But what about when you do something unpleasant in order to make *less* money? Is that greedy?
NBC sells eyeballs to advertisers. Cord cutters have eyeballs, and are willing to consume the advertising supported content. Ironically, cord cutters generally can't skip commercials, unlike the cable customers with DVRs. NBC is therefore cutting the number of viewers by about 10% for no particularly understandable reason.
That's not greed, that's stupid.
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I can't. I'm only 5 miles outside a town of 20,000, but there's a mountain in the way. Somehow Fox and CBS come through, but no NBC.
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Kind of. Advertisers pay less for on-line views then OTA viewers.
And I don’t think it is NBC being greedy, it is International Olympics Committee which is being greedy. They have been able to extract a huge amount of money from NBC so they would have exclusive video rights in the USA. (which may be splitting hairs – they are both greedy, I just think the IOC is more greedy.)
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That still doesn't mean you're owed access to the content.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I'm required to pay taxes to cover the millions of dollars of public funding being spent on security for the games.
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Russian citizen checking in, I guess.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you genuinely believe that the US ships that happen to be nearby, and all the Delegation's land security, as well as the assistance provided by the US agencies warning of toothpaste terrorists, are free?
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
You object to paying to protect our citizens as they travel the world, or you object to not getting free television content as a result of it?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not objecting to anything. I'm pointing out that my tax dollars are used to support a dictator putting on a big corporate show.
Since they are not supposed to be doing this for the glory of Coca-Cola, it must be about the sports.
Under that false assumption, I'm sponsoring a big sports event by paying for its security. As a sponsor, I should probably have the right to see a stream of dreadful US-centric self-congratulatory selective coverage riddled with ads... for free.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
What you get out of paying taxes that go toward protecting our "amateur" athletes as they travel the world is that when you get real good at speed skating they'll protect you too, free of charge. In return, those athletes pay their taxes, and it goes to things that sometimes benefit you more directly than it benefits them.
Neither of you get free TV content out of the deal.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I like how the games are a private enterprise when it comes to NBC's monopoly rents on access to coverage of the games, but part of the world community when it comes to the costs of putting them on. Privatizing the benefits while collectivizing the costs is not capitalism.
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Do you genuinely believe that the US ships that happen to be nearby, and all the Delegation's land security, as well as the assistance provided by the US agencies warning of toothpaste terrorists, are free?
It's prepaid, you pay for those ships, their crews, and supplies, not to mention the agents, regardless of where they are in the world. It might even be saving money to have them in Russia since the price for per diem might even be cheaper there than for travel in the US for the agents, and I don't believe Russia is counted as a war zone for incentive pay.
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Millions of US tax dollars are being spent on security in Sochi?
I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup:
U.S. Navy warships enter Black Sea ahead of Sochi Games [pbs.org]
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but free cable streaming, because taxes!
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
NBC is free to limit access to their broadcasts. What they shouldn't be allowed to do is ban other media companies from providing coverage of the games. The games are either a public event or they aren't. If they're public enough to deserve government funded security, then they're public enough that anyone should be allowed to cover them.
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The Games are a private event in a foreign country that attracts enough American citizens and have a high enough security risk to justify the US Government to implement security contingencies. If the US did not take these steps and something bad happened the US government would be pilloried for not planning properly. The IOC did not ask for those two ships but the US did it anyway to cover their ass.
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The IOC didn't ask for the deployment therefore has no legal requirement to pay for it.
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They're not public.
We're all getting government funded security right now.
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Fuck damn, bring on the beta because the comments eat balls. IOC grants exclusive access, not NBC. NBC bids based on the ability to recoup expenses plus.
As part of the deal, NBC is not required to provide free access to taxpayers. The defense expenditures are unrelated to the IOC NBC deal.
NBC buys an upstream link and spends money, and it sould be free because taxes?
Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you.
Re: Why? (Score:3)
But where else can the crew get caviar, vodka, and babes! As long as they're in the area they might as well spread some good will.
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...except they're not sitting in dock waiting for "real missions." They're always somewhere and this month, that somewhere happens to be outside Sochi.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Except they generally are. At any given time, only about 30% of our Navy is doing something, with another 15% in transit or training.
More than half of our fleet is just hanging out in port waiting:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/n... [navy.mil]
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Wait – I am confused. How are you watching the Olympics in the US but pay Russian taxes? I can think of a select few cases where that can be true but not many.
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
It's silly since it's still available over-the-air for free anyway. Do these "cord cutter" people not have antennas?
Re: Why (Score:3)
I use to live in a town that was 70 miles away from the nearest NBC station. You can't easily pick up content from that far away.
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Not only that, I wouldn't rule out a powered antenna. I can only get one station where I live without it (one station but 2 channels for it). I put a set of powered rabbit ears on a TV and all the sudden I had 13 channels (the major networks like Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and CW) which is about normal for my area. I'm about 30 miles from where the stations are broadcast and I live in a valley.
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You aren't.
But this isn't about free content.
This is about an agreement to restrict who can broadcast the material and how they're using that restriction to deny that material to people.
So the first question should be "why aren't more media companies able to broadcast an event such as the Olympics".
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
They're not restricting their broadcast - since they're still broadcasting it from the top of the hills their antennas are on.
Plug in your antenna and watch it for free.
The Olympics are a big business run by a big company, and they sold the rights to NBC.
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Does NBC give you a way to pay to stream all their coverage from their web site? Watching broadcast television is what we did in the 20th century - in this century we stream stuff on the internet.
I don't think it's the government's job to require NBC to sell products. If NBC doesn't want to get money by selling streaming options, that's not the government's business.
I do think it's the Olympic committee's business. They're the ones who should be requiring NBC to provide live internet coverage (for a fee)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
And why is it that you are owed free content?
I suppose a 4000 year old tradition of having an open and international series of games to bring about peace and cultural tolerance/friendship might confuse some people into thinking that as a global event, the ability to view and participate in them would be something not controlled by a single group of greedy profit-oriented people who don't care to hear the clamours of said participants. Sorta like Slashdot beta....
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
If NBC buys television rights for billions of dollars, of course they're going to use those to make money in any way they can. In my opinion the IOC is the main party to blame here, for selling exclusive television rights in the first place. They're the ones who are supposed to uphold the Olympic tradition.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a 118 year old tradition that happens to have copied the name from a 2790 year old tradition that ceased to exist about 1600 years ago. The ancient olympics have been gone 16 times longer than the modern olympics have been going.
It's a tradition. It's just a bit of a stretch to say it's a 4000 year old tradition.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
No one is owed "free" content. When you've laced your content in ads however, it's no longer technically free. I have to pay a toll of time.
Sure NBC can buy the rights and then restrict the delivery any way they deem fit.
However, the bigger point is, why is it easier to acquire the content surreptitiously than it is to gain lawful access to it? I'm a cord cutter, I don't pay for cable because I don't ever watch it, and I don't want to subsidize the constant creation of crap programming it carries. I shouldn't have to subscribe to basic cable to be an additional set of eyeballs for the one piece of easily streamable content I want in a month.
That said, I don't have to. I'm in Canada, and all the olympic coverage is available online. I'd suggest the submitter find a proxy and go from there.
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And why is it that you are owed free content?
I think the issue is that in 2014 we should have an option to get the content LEGALLY that doesn't entail paying for a complete cable package that we don't otherwise want simply for some coverage of a single sporting event.
Does NBC let you subscribe to the stream? No?
That's the problem. It's not that its not free.
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Try ATT uverse if they offer that in your area. They charge a $50 installation fee. And I was already an internet customer so I didn't have to pay the installation cost. Also even if the installation guy doesn't get there for a week or so, you might still get a username and password to log into the NBC site immediately.
This year I'm just watching OTA and using my sisters cable login to watch the olympics
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Precisely, so why should NBC have to pay for the bandwidth when there's already a well-established method of distribution in place which will cost them the same regardless of how many people consume that resource?
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because entitlement!
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And thanks to /. beta, this comment replied to the wrong place. I was wondering where it went...
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Don't worry, it's not the real Olympics anyway.
This is how slashdot ends. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Hint: Canadian coverage is much better... (Score:2, Insightful)
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...and all online. There's just the minor issue of geolocation to circumvent.
Everyone's coverage is better than NBC's .. NBC spends more time doing profiles, interviews and commercials than the spend showing sports..
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I can't for the life of me see why anyone would consider two weeks of McDonalds and Pepsi sponsored multinational corporate sporty entertainment should be a basic human right. Sochi has nothing to do with sport, or the sort of high ideals that we claim that sports represents.
It's st
Dont watch it (Score:4, Insightful)
the Athletes are awesome... buts its too political and commercial now.
and now the Olympics are being limited to certain media outlets....
Meh is right. (Score:2)
Meh.
Use an antenna. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Use an antenna. (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty much all HDTVs support receiving over-the-air TV stations using an antenna, and considering NBC is one of the largest broadcast networks in the US, it shouldn't be that hard to get NBC if you don't have cable.
Do you really think that all the content is on the OTA NBC station? In my case NBC is broadcasting on 5 different channels in my Comcast region. Only one of these is OTA.
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Except streaming you can block people from fast forwarding and force them to watch ads.
It is streaming's big advantage - you can't fast-forward through commercials on streaming TV - wither it be watching it on a station's streaming service, Hulu or what haveyou.
All you need is interactive ads, like every 5 seconds make them click on some part of the ad otherwise the entire stream stops until it proceeds, so no running to the bathr
Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
That 9% is pretty used to having reduced access to licensed, live television content as a direct consequence of not paying a subscription for licensed, live television content.
Money Games (Score:5, Insightful)
For a while not, the Olympics has been nothing but a money making and redistribution system. When I was a kid, we had amateur athletes that worked hard for their few minutes of fame. The money for them came after their competitions, so it was a bit less corrupt. Sure, we had steroids back then and people were getting busted. At least they tried to give a sense of fair play back then.
Today's Olympics is like watching any other televised sport (NBA/NFL/Baseball). It's a sham to make money. Most participants do have some natural talent, but anything that makes TV is well.. treated differently. Athletes are "trained", "fed", given exceptional medical care, and pampered for the spotlight. Their sponsors abuse them to make money, media outlets do the same, and Governments use them for clout (see how much money we spent on _our_ athletes!).
I'm sure part of my bias is becoming older and more cynical. Not that much though, because we have an internet that lets us compare today to the 70s and see the difference. Pro Hockey players are what make the Olympic teams today, and Pro basket ball players, and Professional skaters are what's on the ice. The US claims to have done this because others do, which may or may not be true. Two wrongs won't bring back the original spirit of the games however.
Re:Money Games (Score:5, Insightful)
It is extremely commercial nowadays, but keeping out pros was always an idiotic farce. It harkened back to the days of pros vs. athlettes who had patrons, the latter being amateurs.
Over the last century, many nations became the patron, including communist ones that, idiotically, legally had no pros at all. Yet their job was to develop and make the motherland look good on the international stage.
If they could do well, they got rewarded in a perverse aping of capitalism -- they got upgraded apartments and things for their family. Judges likewise had similar additional pressure to slant things -- pressures well above the West, because lack of freedom disallowed all alternatives.
So I'm fine with pros being allowed -- in many countries except the West, they've been there all along, and the anti-pro rule got started as a snooty wishback to days of kings and lords being patrons, with modern governments taking over that snooty role, touting it as a virue to their populace, as opposed to those crass pros doing it for money.
bah (Score:2)
Legality is overrated. Then again, so are the Olympics.
Move to Canada! (Score:5, Informative)
If you're Usian or from the UK i'd recommend getting an unblock [unblock-us.com] subscription and setting your country to Canada.
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Madness? (Score:3)
There are 2,850 athletes.
That's about $1.5 million for every single athlete competing.
Why not Aereo? (Score:2)
And this is news? (Score:2)
Let the Olympics die (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like slash BETA the world wouldn't really be affected one way or the other if the Olympics just up and went away. The worst effects would be felt by the corporate sponsors who would be deprived of a way to market their garbage to teh sheeple consumers.
Let the Olympics die. The International Olympic Committee and a large percentage of the national committees are some of the most corrupt organizations in the world. Fuck 'em.
And if someone who doesn't subscribe to cable television can't see online video of the games then I consider that a GOOD thing. It leaves more bandwidth for the rest of us.
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Getting a bunch of amateur sports teams together to play series of tournaments does not require fifty billion dollars in infrastructure.
Neither do the Olympics. That was kind of Russia's choice.
Little Impact (Score:3)
Considering that real-time programming, particularly sports, is why many people hold onto their CATV subscriptions to begin with, I'm not expecting a whole lot of overlap between those who cut their cord and whose who are particularly interested in live Olympic coverage.
Just as well... (Score:3)
1. Ignore the whole fiasco to start with
2. If it hurts their ratings because people can't get to the content, they'll learn...eventually
meh (Score:2)
Screw the olympics I want my Formula 1 fix (Score:2)
I don't care about the olympics but I wish there was a way for cord-cutters in the US to still watch Formula 1 at home.
should stream wirelessly via multicast, neh broadc (Score:2)
They should be forced to stream their OTA content.
In fact, they should put WAPs all over the country streaming it wirelessly. To do this efficiently, they should use multicast packets Better yet, use broadcast packets.
It could be called "broadcast television".
Huh? Cord Cutter that has no problem watching. (Score:3)
Winter.Olympics.2014.Team.Figure.Skating.Pairs.Short.Program.720p.HDTV
Winter.Olympics.2014.Ladies.Moguls.Qualification.1.720p.HDTV.x264-2HD
Winter.Olympics.2014.Mens.Slopestyle.Qualification.HDTV.x264-2HD
You get the point--if you are going to cut the cord--I'd hope you know how to get content before you made the move...
One last link: Instructions on watching live: http://deadspin.com/how-to-wat... [deadspin.com]
NBCs coverage online makes me rage (Score:3)
I'm basing this post off of my previous experience watching the summer olympics online. I don't expect it will be any different this time around, but perhaps NBC will surprise me.
Two years ago, as I am now, I'm "borrowing" my sister's login and password for her paid TV subscription. Why doesn't NBC allow non-subscribers to buy online streaming access? I would pay some amount of money (maybe $30?) to get access to the online coverage and they aren't letting me. I can't think of a reason why they don't make this an option...
That is, I would pay for it if the online coverage wasn't terrible in several different ways. First, spoilers are EVERYWHERE on the website and cannot be avoided. Unless I stay up until 3am to watch an event live there's no way I can watch the event the following day without inadvertently seeing the results on the website while trying to get to the recorded stream. Sometimes the spoiler is even part of the video itself ("Watch Bode Miller win gold!")!
Second, many or most of the broadcasts online are commentator free. Even IF you know all the ins and outs of curling rules, commentators are very helpful in conveying exactly what it is that you're watching (e.g. who is the player or team being shown? What is the significance of this match in the tournament? Who are they playing next? etc.). The prime-time TV broadcasts that are heavily edited to show the most interesting bits are completely unavailable online.
Third, high profile medal events cannot be watched until the DAY AFTER the prime-time TV broadcast has occurred unless you stay up until 3am to watch it live. Not only do you then have to impossibly dodge the spoilers on the website, but also radio, TV, co-worker conversations, etc. the following day.
Fan of mass-exclusivity (Score:3)
The fools are shooting themselves in the foot:
Here's an idea: Lets get the entire next generation disinterested in the Olympics by making it impossible to see it over their preferred method unless they bug their parents for cable bill info! Lets remind those kids who is in-charge.
This will also exclude some Americans and totally exclude all those fit country people so they won't join the games out of spite. Now the US won't participate as well or be interested as much. And we know how well America watches international sports they do poorly in. Soccer anyone?
This media event is unrelated to the ancient games except by name. It's about 20 years before irrelevance.
Die, cable, die. (Score:3)
Is this a money play by Comcast/NBC to get some subscribers back?
Obviously.
Should the FCC step in and require NBC to at least provide a stream of their OTA content?
No, but the IOC should, if they want the games to be a thing Americans still watch in 15-20 years. The FCC already failed when they allowed the anti-competitive Comcast/NBC merger in the first place.
NO (Score:3)
NO. You are already being "given" (in exchange for advertising that you can easily, and legally, skip with a DVR) the broadcasts OTA. (and you can already easily use a Tivo & iPad app, or Slingbox, etc., to get your own recordings to your phone/tablet)
Why should someone run expensive servers for stuff they paid for, if they think they won't make money from it?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Slashdort beta: another reason we need COMMUNIS (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you read what that new link says?
It says they'll keep classic around "until we're confident that the new site is ready", thus implying they do plan to remove classic. It states that they "have work to do in four big areas", and accurately lists what people have been complaining about (the accuracy and non-contradictoriness of the list makes Soulskill's assertions that much of the feedback is contradictory look questionable, to say the least), but carefully refrains from actually saying that any particular improvements will happen before they roll out the beta and execute classic.
In short, once you run it through a corporatespeak filter, it says they didn't expect this much backlash, they're going to postpone the rollout (but not necessarily change it in any other way), and they're trying to pacify us by repeating back what we've said. And if you read between the lines, you might get the impression they're not going to give us this much warning next time...
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Words to remember. If you are getting something for free, you are not the customer. You are the product.
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"Freedom" would be if anyone receiving NBC's broadcast signal had the right to retransmit it (over the Internet or otherwise).
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Are you hoping that the DRM is challenging enough to be amusing?
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"FCC should"
Considering the inbreeding between the US agencies and the people they regulate, it's just not going to happen.
Regardless of which market is being discussed.
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From Bruce Peren's http://technocrat.net/ [technocrat.net] ...
You've reached a web site owned by Perens LLC. We are moving to new servers and thus the content you expected isn't online yet.
To reach Bruce Perens, email to bruce at perens dot com, or phone +1 510-4PERENS.
Hot topics as I write this: Why doesn't Bruce resurrect Technocrat.net now that Slashdot is owned by Dice.com and stinks more than the last two times I've shut down Technocrat.net due to lack of readership? And while we're at it, we need to replace Groklaw.
Think it would really work this time? You've got my email and phone.
Re:We are also getting snubbed by Slashdot BETA (Score:4, Insightful)
Talk - action = nothing.
Slashdot is a conversation site. The talk IS the action.
Here's some more of it: FUCK BETA.
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I doubt most of the people complaining about the beta are people who would really care if facebook broke their crap, on account of we probably mostly don't actually use facebook. I haven't used facebook since it basically *was* a beta (back when it was new and exciting, and notably, only for college kids), for anything other than liking some random crap in exchange for a contest entry.
Re:Cut the BETA! (Score:4, Interesting)
The reaction to these changes demostrates the issues "nerds" have with change.
Change is neither inherently bad, nor is it inherently good. The problems people have been raising with the Beta are many and are legitimate concerns: tone-deaf forcing upon the users, reduced information density and poor use of space, loss of features, more development emphasis on articles (a top-down feature) rather than the comment system (a community-driven feature), etc. Dismissing these concerns as just a "fear of change" is intellectually dishonest and insulting.
I suddenly feel sory for GNOME Designers.
Don't. They are terrible for very similar reasons. A high-handed notion that their "cleaner" design trumps the need for any features that they removed that others might have actually used to work more efficiently. Plus, both cases had an existing community that did not like the changes and were ignored in favor of hopefully appealing to newer users.
Kind of like Spike TV (designed from the beginning to target 18-35 single males) trying their damnedest to get women to stop watching the network, so they could sell ads to the right people. As my sig says, it's because it's the advertisers who are viewed as the "real" customers. We're just the product, and product doesn't get much of a say in how it's used.