RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] programmers that don't know tarballs?

["Ross, Matt" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> > Welcome to the world of web standards. YES they're written for the
> > colorblind, we're required (especially those like me in state
> > government) to write pages that are readable by all 
> possible people.  
> > Someday soon we'll be required to write HTML that is 
> readable without
> > a computer to take care of the poor people without PC's.  As for bad
> > color choices, that's what you get when half the web 
> -doesn't- have to
> > conform to standards.
> 
> I already make an effort to make my websites readable without a PC..
> partly due to the fact I love to use the web from my cell 
> phone and partly
> due to the fact I work with the handicapped and poor alot. 
> That isn't to
> say that every page I make is that way but I try to consider 
> it in site
> design, especially with code or sites that will be used a lot.

Ok, crush my sarcastic comment...
On that note though, how do you do that?  
My guess is that it's just a text only browser that your cell phone uses, in
which case, that's one of the standards we already have to meet.

> > 1) A lack of ads won't bring down the web, however, it will 
> bring down
> > the free web.  Without ads, we'll be limited to official sites which
> > can afford to stay up because they sell something.
> 
> BS. We had web sites before anyone thought to put ads on 
> them.. much less
> before people were willing to pay for such ad space. Even 
> before the web
> there were lots of good sites in existance and a good many of 
> them were
> not funded by the government or schools. That is not to say 
> they the sites
> didn't often borrow bandwidth off the government or their 
> hosting school
> but the computers and all the work involved was usually 
> entirely donated
> and often sites would eventually shift to being ran on 
> donations. Before
> even that there were BBS's and they were often very high 
> quality and free.

You're making the assumption that things haven't changed.  People expect
things free when they're on the web, thanks to the ads paying for things for
so long.  It will take years before anyone really considers donating to
their favorite sites as a matter of course, in which time, unfunded sites
will die out.

> You would probably see the death of the Yahoo-like giant sites, or at
> least far fewer giant sites being created, but in my opinion 
> that is the
> way the Net is supposed to be. Massively distributed where 
> everyone has
> the same chance to be heard. Bandwidth and hardware is a LOT 
> cheaper these
> days too.

Giant sites would be fine.  Yahoo would just start charging for its email
and other services.  In a decade or so, when the backyard web that was
mentioned here earlier exists, we'll be hosting our own, so this will once
again not matter.  I am curious how DNS would work on such an internet
though.  Perhaps you could set it up like current email username signups.

> > 2) Sites that need banners aren't always poor quality, I've seen one
> > that was probably the best anime site out there, but people who are
> > interested expect it free, so they won't help pay for it.  On top of
> > that, without banners saying "we need money", how would 
> they get those
> > donations?
> 
> I didn't say they were always poor quality. 

No, Igor did.

> If they sell a 
> product then
> I'll buy it if I like it. If all they sell is information 
> then I'll still
> buy it if I like it and find the cost reasonable for it's 
> value. If the
> information is something easily reproduced without them 
> though it will not
> be worth my money to pay a subscription fee. As much as I 
> like Slashdot it
> is not worth a subscription fee as is because I can find lots of other
> communities that deal with the same subjects, or even create 
> my own. That
> is especially true if the sites Slashdot links to also start changing
> subscription fees. One idea though would be that Slashdot 
> would be worth
> subscribing to if the other sites switched to a subscription model and
> Slashdot made a deal with them to let their readers access 
> articles linked
> to from Slashdot without being subscribers to the individual sites.
> 
> Also it's quite easy to choose what banners are filtered out and what
> banners are not. As long as their banner is within their own 
> site and is
> not spammy it'd likely be left alone.
> 
> > 3) The web is moving away from banners.  Banner sites are 
> paying less, and
> > offering less services for the pages that display their 
> banners. The site I
> > just mentioned was shut down because its banners no longer 
> paid enough for
> > the $600 a month hosting fee.  In a last ditch effort to 
> help out, they
> > tried a clicking spree, clicking all sites that came up in 
> the banner.  This
> > caused the banner company to drop them, so the full cost of 
> the $600 was
> > left to the site owner.  He put up a "Paypal" banner for 
> donations to the
> > site, and while he got over 100 donors, none of them had 
> enough money to
> > support the site.
> 
> It happens. I have to wonder why it cost $600/month hosting 
> fee though.
> You can get a pretty decent host with reasonable levels of 
> bandwidth for a
> lot less than that. 

It's more than bandwidth.  They run apache with perl, php, SSI, and a lot of
graphics.  It's a fairly large site too, so the bandwidth involved is no
slouch.  I've heard claims of 10,000 individual users per day, which is
probably why they're in the $600 category.

> If they had that many users and the users wouldn't
> cough up the money in donations then they deserve to have lost a great
> site. I would have slimmed the site though in that case where sizable
> donations were coming in ($100-$200 month isn't bad) but not enough..
> improved cachability (is that a word?), fewer graphics, 
> services cut back
> to include only the things that are needed but don't drive up 
> bandwidth
> and diskspace usage.

The site targeted kids, kids don't have money.  It was a pokemon site (those
with derogatory remarks about it can KMA).

> Also it should be noted that since 9-11 donations for other 
> things seem to
> have dropped through the floor. I guess people can only 
> donate so much and
> they've donated to that cause. Reasonable but harsh for some of us. :)

Probably a factor, but again, the users of the site could hardly afford to
keep it up.  Most who did, I gather, could only coax their parents into
letting them donate a dollar or two.

> I do think a micro-donations idea is good.. sort of like 
> micro-payments
> but 100% optional.. so you can suggest your browser an amount 
> to pay per
> page or kilobyte or something on certain sites and the 
> browser will take
> care of donating for you. I think if it were that easy more 
> people would
> do it. If it added up to a buck or two per month per user 
> it'd help a lot
> and since it's optional people wouldn't worry so much about 
> oppression of
> those to poor to pay or being suckered into paying for sites that use
> dirty tricks like endless popup windows.

If we could make a limit on popups, say perhaps, one per "on load" and have
an easy option to shut off the "on unload" I'd even consider paying for it
if I couldn't find it free online.
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