Joe 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (47) comment rss

  • On the post: McDonald's Laughs Off Criticism Embedded In April Fool's Joke

    Joe ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2010 @ 03:11pm

    Re:

    That was my thought too. There have been so many posts here about how companies shouldn't have sued other parties and should have instead embraced the attention. Now, we see a company doing that (kinda, at least they didn't attack the user or try to sue them) and you complain about that too?!

    I'm no fan of Mc D's, but seriously, it's like lose-lose around here. I expected better from Techdirt... maybe it's just that Mike didn't pen this one?

  • On the post: Maryland Police Confiscate Biker's Computers After He Catches Questionable Activity On Helmet Cam

    Joe ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2010 @ 02:53pm

    Re:

    Also, in the cop's defense, the motorcycle was rolling backwards away from the cop as he got out, making it look at a glance like the cyclist might try to run for it.
    Let's see, a civilian car cuts you off and the civilian driver jumps out of the vehicle with a gun, yelling at you. Yeah, I'd try to get the hell out of there too!

    The officer pulled his gun, unprovoked, and he didn't even bother to mention that he was an officer until well after the fact. I'm no law enforcement officer, but it's hard to believe that is standard procedure.

  • On the post: DirecTV Pays Studios To Help Confuse Customers Further

    Joe ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2010 @ 02:27pm

    Re:

    I think you greatly underestimate the average consumer.

    I don't expect to see a mass defect to BB to rent new releases or anything, but I can see people being incorrectly upset with NetFlix or RedBox as a result because they assume THEY are the ones delaying releases.

  • On the post: Blockbuster Using Its Deal With Warner Bros. To Mock Redbox And Netflix

    Joe ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2010 @ 02:22pm

    Re:

    Totally forgot about that, but you're right, I did see that when I was at my parents' a few weeks ago. If I paid for TV service at home, I probably would have see it there too...

  • On the post: Blockbuster Using Its Deal With Warner Bros. To Mock Redbox And Netflix

    Joe ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2010 @ 02:10pm

    Re: Re:

    If my local market is any indication, not well. All the ones in my area have closed up shop. 1 was evicted and the building remains vacant, the other seems to at least be rented to a pet store now.

  • On the post: Don't Blame Your Community: Ad Blocking Is Not Killing Any Sites

    Joe ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2010 @ 03:26pm

    Wow, I had white-listed them after reading that article, but now I've seen some of their responses to their users. Breaking the site and then trying to scold and guilt their users? Screw them!

    I'll just do what they want me to do and never come back. It was rare that I ever found read-worthy articles on Ars anyway...

  • On the post: SellaBand Bankruptcy Shows Poor Execution; Not A Condemnation Of Fan Funding

    Joe ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2010 @ 08:12am

    Re: CwF & Then DIY

    There's value in assisting the CwF model though. Think about how valuable something like MySpace Music is to a lot of artists. Plus, a lot of artists probably have no idea how to set up a server, communication channels, music streaming or anything else. Sure it's possible that fans will help them out with that part, but I don't think bands can or should always expect that to happen.

    It doesn't sounds like SellaBand was doing it right, and I'm sure there are a lot of other companies doing it wrong, but that's not the same as saying nobody is doing it right (or providing any value to the band or their fans) or that they're all just middle-men.

  • On the post: Ubisoft DRM Gets Worse And Worse: Kicks You Out Of Game If You Have A Flakey WiFi Connection

    Joe ( profile ), 19 Feb, 2010 @ 07:00am

    Re:

    Yeah, EA left a bad taste in my mouth with Spore. I won't buy their games anymore. I think the only difference between EA and Ubisoft now is that EA has games I actually would like to play...

  • On the post: Copyright Industry Responds To iiNet Ruling By Asking For Gov't Bailout; Aussie Gov't 'Studying' It

    Joe ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2010 @ 09:21am

    Re: Re: Re:

    If everyone has an internet connection, and piracy is 100% legal (no risk of getting caught), why would anyone pay?

    Ask all the people buying stuff from iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, Blockbuster and all the other media delivery services. Those companies have a lot of paying customers, and those customers are all buying things that can easily be found online for free illegally.

    You may argue that those companies are all US-serving, to which I would argue that there's basically no risk in downloading anything illegally in the US already (which is somehow 100% legal by your definition too).

    So, of those paying customers, "everyone has an internet connection" with "no risk of getting caught" and they're still paying. Your concerns seem somewhat unfounded.

  • On the post: NY Times Execs Think People Will Pay $20 To $30 Per Month For The iPad Edition Of The NY Times

    Joe ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2010 @ 07:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Why should digital paper costs _have_ to fall?

    You are trying to read too much into my point. _All_ I am saying is that there is no reason why a different delivery mechanism should _have_ to mean a different price. Furthermore it isn't clear that the price should have to fall either.

    You're kind of right, in principle, but I think most people feel that if you're paying additional money for the ability to consume a different medium, that medium's price should reflect a savings to recoup that initial investment. Especially when the new medium is less valuable (in the case of ebooke: can't share it, can't write on it, can't use it without power, etc.).

    And even if you are trying to maximize profits, you need to be able to drop that price to keep up with competition or they'll price you out of business. In the case of this story, I doubt NYT is prepared to keep prices in check...

  • On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?

    Joe ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2010 @ 11:55am

    Re: What will it take?

    And don't forget price.

    I suspect the ~40% of people represented as "will never buy online" are probably the people who expect their demands will never be met. The ~50% of the "might buy online" crowd are at least hopeful they'll one day get what they are looking for.

  • On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?

    Joe ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2010 @ 11:52am

    Re: But how much would they pay?

    The big unanswered question is "How much would they pay?" And a second question is, "Under what terms?"

    Well said.

  • On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?

    Joe ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2010 @ 11:34am

    Re: Even without the revised graph....

    That's what I thought too. The orange bar means nothing, it's a fantasy figure. The blue bar speaks the truth, and the truth is that few people are buying content online. If they lowered the prices to meet the supply, they'd see a lot more people buying and probably even make a lot more money. At the very least, they'd still be making the same amount of money but selling a lot more (ie. the blue bar would go up, but the profits would be the same).

    I'm curious what they were asked exactly too. I mean, I'd buy content online too, so I guess I'd be in the orange bar. But I won't buy it at the current prices and definitely not through the most popular channels. For example, I'll never use iTunes since I think it's a terrible piece of software and I lack both an Apple device and a compatible operating system; it's not JUST the price keeping me from using their service, but the price DOES keep me from even considering it.

    As for the paying to remove ads thing, I still see that from time to time. It's pretty dumb to base you ENTIRE model on that, given the ease of competing (as you pointed out), but also given niceties like AdBlock/AdThward, which makes removing ads trivial and free for the user. It's a bad reason to buy.

  • On the post: How Someone Pretended To Be HJ Heinz On Twitter

    Joe ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2010 @ 10:40pm

    Re: Why did Heinz even do something?

    Making it clear that he's NOT a representative for the company is a bad thing? It's not like they are trying to sue him, they are just making sure that people know he's not working for Heinz.

    Is it a missed marketing opportunity? Perhaps, but I think it was very smart of them to make it be known that this guy doesn't work for Heinz and doesn't actually represent the company. I mean, if he was building a following and then one day turned on the company, that would have looked pretty bad for them, wouldn't you agree?

    I think it's pretty interesting that Twitter didn't remove the account though. They could have easily done so (and I'm sure they HAVE done so on a regular basis), but instead just renamed it.

  • On the post: EMI Apparently Forgot Grey Album Disaster; Issues Takedown Of Wu Tang vs. Beatles

    Joe ( profile ), 15 Feb, 2010 @ 02:19pm

    Not that it matters much, but I've heard the album, and it's pretty solid. I wonder if this will escalate the album to the status of the Grey Album. It was, in my opinion, far better than the original Black Album, just as this is far better than the original 36 Chanbers.

    I won't be sad to see EMI go though.

  • On the post: Duh: Raise Music Prices To $1.29/Song; Music Sales Growth Slows

    Joe ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2010 @ 01:34pm

    Re:

    The difference between 0.99 and 1.29 isn't enough to turn people away.

    That's almost a 30% increase in the cost of music. I'm not willing to pay $0.99 personally, so there's no way in hell I would pay 30% *more* than that. This may not apply to people who are used to the iTunes experience but it does matter for people that are just buying music.

    People will only pay for music as long as it's cheap enough to not be worth pirating. I would argue that for a good number of people, a roughly 30% increase would be enough to tip them in favor of piracy.

  • On the post: Wait, Who Wants A Proprietary, Locked Down Device That Limits What You Can Do?

    Joe ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2010 @ 10:10pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    If you want 3G speeds, your only choice is AT&T anyway. The radio doesn't support T-Mobile's network. If the demand is there, I'm sure TMo would be quite happy to offer pre-paid Micro SIM cards though. Plus, I think you can take any SIM card you want to any GSM provider and they'll activate it. AT&T might not let you get the data plan without their SIM card, but T-Mobile is unlikely to care much.

    For the record though, AT&T USED to offer an unlimited data plan for smartphones (iPhones expressly prohibited) for $30/mo (or maybe $35/mo). Looking at their website now, this is no longer the case. Seems they've dropped the plan and offered it up to Apple as some kind of fancy new plan...

  • On the post: PayPal Suspends WikiLeaks Account Yet Again; Freezes Assets

    Joe ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2010 @ 02:01pm

    Re:

    I was thinking the same thing actually. For a service to be so notorious to not have any real competition is pretty appalling. I realize that it would be near (or completely) impossible to break in to the eBay payment business, but there's money to be made just handling credit transactions on the cheap...

  • On the post: Recording Industry May Go After OiNK Admin Again

    Joe ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2010 @ 09:48pm

    Re:

    Well, he was acquitted of running a site that infringed copyright, but he DID confess, on the stand and under oath, that he had downloaded music personally. THAT could be used in the civil suit, as Mike pointed out in the previous story. I still think it's a bunch of crap, but he DID openly admin to it, so it's kind of his own fault. Proving exactly WHAT was downloaded and the appropriate penalty might be tough though. At the very least, they won't be seeing all of the donated cash, and Alan won't be seeing any jail time. Hopefully, the case will be tossed, but the have a leg to stand on on the civil case; the criminal case, not so much.

  • On the post: OiNK Admin: Not Guilty

    Joe ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2010 @ 01:16pm

    Re:

    I'm more curious if his servers will be returned now that he's been found not guilty and they had no infringing information on them. From what I understand, they confiscated a lot of equipment.

    I wasn't a member (never heard about it until it got raided, kind of a Napster story I guess), but the site's full return would be cool too.

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