So, I look at various topics on wikipedia probably at least 5 times a day, often more. Right now, they are asking for donations by putting a bar at the top of the screen with names of donors along with an amount they donated and a testimonial of some sort.
After thinking, what? I do not want to pay money to wikipedia! I will not!
I then considered how much we expect our media to be free. We don't want to pay a dime for anything, even though someone had to put their time and effort into providing us with the things we receive. Pretty much everything on the internet is a given- free. facebook (there are always speculations that they will start charging, and everyone freaks out and makes 3 million groups about it), music (pandora charges if you listen more than 40 HOURS a month??!!!? OUTRAGE!), television (WHAT? Hulu is charging money next year?!!?? I will never be paying for that!).
So, why do we think that we shouldn't have to pay for anything? Or what do we consider worthy of our money?
Are they any problems with things being free?
Yes.
-Pornography- accessible, anonymous and affordable. Now more than ever, anyone can view pornography without anyone knowing (they don't have to shell out money for it, and they don't have to go to the store to buy it). This has caused more problems for relationships and families than I want to think about.
-Failing Music Industry- who wants to pay for music when they are many sites (most perfectly legal) that they can get it from for free?
-Promises to "NEVER pay for movies again" which I got when I googled it. This will probably never happen, and people get all mad when they have to pay a dollar to watch a good film. What about the millions of dollars put into that movie to make it so good?
-If something does cost money, people often ignore it. "I won't pay for that!" hulu, "elfyourself" (people ONLY ever make the free ones), people who do free trials of netflix and then cancel after 15 days of watching as many movies as they possibly could.
I am guilty of the obsession with FREE things, too. Just something to think about?
So this is what my husband thinks:
ReplyDeleteActually a lot of these companies can offer this because they have paid advertisements. Take hulu for instance, you have to watch their advertisements in order to watch their shows, and movies. ESPN makes me watch their advertisements anytime I want to watch their videos. It is all over the place.
The point of advertisements in this case are to decrease or off seat the coast of production and maintenance. It's that simple, but if the customers are forced to pay on top of being forced to watch advertisements then there is a legitimate cause for complaint.
As far as Netflix is concerned, it isn’t that easy to simply take advantage of the system. You can only get so many movies in the mail at a time and it takes about 3-4 days worth of turnaround before new ones come. Also, most movies are not available online so even though you can watch as many as you want, what is the point of watching hundreds of hours worth of movies you barley want to see anyway?
As far as porn goes, I’m not going to debate with you on that one as it is everywhere. From the stuff we pay for like books, magazines, movies, and TV shows (that’s right folks, TV has porn everywhere, most people are just so desensitized to it they can hardly tell—watch Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, or 30 Rock and tell me these shows aren’t very risqué).
Anyway, so the point of this rant is that there is more to free than meets the eye because in the end we pay for all this crap with our TIME… whatever, blah, something intelligent, ho-hum the end.
Whoa Katelyn ;) That was a rant.
ReplyDeleteI definitely am aware of advertising, and know that is how companies make money.
I was more referring to the way WE see things, though. We don't want to spend any money on everything, and only productive time is worth money.
It was Josh's rant, swear. :)
ReplyDelete