turbine - News flash

March 10, 2010

News flash

A popular blog truncated its RSS feeds to boost site pageviews. It’s like last week, when The Atlantic changed to partial-content RSS feeds. And that was like every other week, when some publisher did something that some readers didn’t like to make a few more cents.

I dislike the intrusive advertising on Salon, so I don’t read Salon. I dislike Michael Arrington, so I never read anything on TechCrunch (even when they write about me or my products) and have taken technical measures to ensure that I never even land there accidentally and give them whatever tiny profit that one pageview is worth. I don’t like the timebombed, Unicode-breaking Clickability print-friendly view for New York Magazine, since I like reading NYMag-length pieces in Instapaper and Clickability doesn’t work well in it, so I just don’t read NYMag’s articles. I don’t like Ars Technica’s paginated articles, but since I don’t want to pay for a subscription, I just read every page separately, give them all of their separate-page ad views, and save each page to Instapaper if I want to read them that way.

One reaction I’ve never had is to think that I deserve anything from these publishers.

Valid point: [Publisher] should consider doing it some other way because this will alienate some readers.

Invalid point: [Publisher] should do it my way because all content deserves to be free/ad-free/full-RSS/single-page.

I see a staggering amount of entitlement every day in the form of arguments and blog posts like the latter.

We don’t deserve anything. Publishers can do whatever they want. If you don’t like it, don’t send them nasty emails or browse their sites with ad-blockers: just don’t support them. Don’t read their content, don’t link to them, and don’t talk about them. Since money’s not usually involved, vote with your attention and read elsewhere.

I have to disagree on the point of email. If something matters enough to you, send an email, but be polite. If they’ve changed something and you don’t like it, send an email letting them know, but do your best to explain why you felt the old way was better. Or, explain you like the old way, but try to help them make the new way better or more effective.

Also? If someone’s doing something in a way you particularly like, email them too. Many folks don’t understand Web traffic or analytics or log files or any of that stuff. They do, however, understand clear, cogent letters sent electronically or via USPS. Those letters enable them to make decisions about future changes or to decide that things work well just the way they are.

I agree that you probably shouldn’t visit sites with ad blockers on without tossing them at least a couple bucks every couple months. And I do agree with Marco’s assessment that many people have settled into a ridiculous sense of entitlement for absolutely no good reason.

I disagree, however, with the effectiveness of closing yourself off. This idea of “I’ll ignore it,” is ineffective and has allowed for everything from bad business decisions to an endangered Darwin in the Kansas public school system.

Be smart, be nice, but be vocal. It’s the only way anyone will ever understand what you’re thinking.

9:02am | URL: http://tumblr.com/ZlJibyQAjMR

(Notes: 158)