Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2010/09/scribd_puts_my.html

by maconic • 16 years ago

294 104 16 years ago

blog.ericgoldman.org

ilamont2• 16 years ago

I have content hosted there too and value the "open access" spirit, but would also like to see Scribd develop a viable business model. An alternative is the service will close down and everything -- both free and archived -- will go away.

Another question: Besides an archive paywall, what else could the company do to build revenue (such as professional services, print-on-demand, etc.)

acqq9• 16 years ago

> I have content hosted there too

Can you please or anybody else explain me why you see any added value of scribd at all? I see it only as an annoyance. If I'd like to read a pdf I'd prefer to click on the link and read it, not to go to some suspicious site which demands from me to sign up there only to do what otherwise would be one single click.

As far as I know the only "advantage" of the service was to make content infringement easier (a site for documents which is like youtube was for videos), and that the site owners expect people to pay for access to it is hardly surprising. But I like other mechanisms more.

My suggestion for everybody who is the owner of his own documents and wants to upload them: host them as the normal files on the normal sites, unless you do want people to pay for access to them.

_delirium2• 16 years ago

I don't use it myself, but reasons people I know have used it:

1. They don't have webspace and want to put a PDF somewhere online.

2. They do have webspace, but are worried, possibly unnecessarily, that it'll cost them too much money if they send out a link to a big PDF to a large-ish mailing list.

3. For Mac users, where PDFs don't load in a plugin in the browser by default, they want to be able to link to a PDF that opens in the browser instead of popping up an external viewer.

4. And, yes: They have a PDF that is at best gray-area which they want to distribute without hosting it themselves, like a scan of a book chapter for a reading group.

ilamont2• 16 years ago

There are several reasons why I use it:

- I can post papers or other documents that other people might value but not otherwise be available, such as court docs, academic papers, etc.

- I can embed the documents easily in my blogs (and before at the publication I worked at)

- I don't have to worry about hosting. I could easily upload the PDFs to the Web server my school grants me, but after I graduate, it's gone, and I have to find another solution and change the links.

jakevoytko• 16 years ago

One idea: host a simple document conversion service. Pay money, upload a PDF, download an HTML5 page. Lots of documents on the web are better hosted on the creator's servers, like restaurant menus and research papers. I see they have an embeddable API, but (A) they don't push it very hard, and (B) it has a higher barrier to entry than just downloading a webpage.

Another idea: Cut out the middleman and sell a "print to webpage" plugin for Windows.

ulf3• 16 years ago

Sometimes, when reading pieces like this, I think it is time that we as internet users reach a certain point in our understanding of entitlement. There are so many services we readily use, most free of charge, while some of them provide a huge service to us. Some even make us money. But if the service providers themselves try to validate their business by making money out of it in some way, we start bitching...

I do not especially condone what Scribd is doing here, nor can I say I would have anticipated that behaviour (harvesting interesting content and subsequently making the whole service pay-only is not the dumbest thing ever), but if you take a second when you first start using a service and try to think about the fact that they some day will have to make money, you should be able to get some conclusions. What options does the provider of the service have to make money at all? Which of these options would be ok for me? Which would piss me off badly? And how do I avoid being in a trap like the OP?

If one thinks about those questions instead of just feeling entitled to use a service, which might be "free" at the moment, the awakening should not be to abrupt.

pdu• 16 years ago

While I generally agree with your points, I don't think they are particularly apt to this article. The guy isn't saying Scribd owes him anything, he even states that he understands they never promised him a free service in perpetuity.

But when you make a service available for free and take pride in that fact, harvest your users content, and then suddenly flip over to a paid service without even giving your users adequate notice or tools to opt out I can completely understand how users might feel cheated.

Isn't the company partly responsible for creating the sense of entitlement you're talking about?

ulf3• 16 years ago

I totally agree with you that it is understandable to feel cheated in this occasion. Changing the model without saying so clearly is just bad communication (see the posterous link fiasco). But nevertheless I feel that a company does not have to explicitly state the fact that they are somehow aspiring to make money with their product, that is a given. So as a user I cannot be too shocked when somecorp starts to make money.

ajscherer• 16 years ago

I would flip that around on you: I think it is time that companies reach a point in their understanding of users' reaction to the bait & switch.

The value of your service to a user isn't going to increase simply due to the passage of time or growth of your site. If they wouldn't pay for it on day 1, the odds are they won't pay for it after 2 years of using the service. If, in the process of trying to monetize your service, you "hold hostage" a portion of the value that the user has contributed to your site, they are going to be pissed.

This has all happened many times now. I think companies trying this route in the first place will be easier to change than peoples' reaction to it.

rick8882• 16 years ago

"The value of your service to a user isn't going to increase simply due to the passage of time or growth of your site. "

Yes it will. If that user uses your service every day, over time, it will be more valuable to them. Most services also don't just stay the same over time. More features are added and bugs are fixed, which adds to the value.

"If they wouldn't pay for it on day 1, the odds are they won't pay for it after 2 years of using the service."

If you never gave them the option of paying in the first place, how do you know?

"I think companies trying this route in the first place will be easier to change than peoples' reaction to it."

The answer is to not have free services in the first place. Many companies have tried the freemium model and then realize that it can't scale (IE: the costs to support this free user base out weighs the benefits).

ryanelkins• 16 years ago

I want to give Scribd the benefit of the doubt. I don't really see this as malicious as much as a business decisions that was misinterpreted.

It was probably something like this: People upload a lot of stuff to their service. Once content goes "stale" no one is viewing it anymore, but they are still storing it. They decided they could either remove the material to make room for new stuff or monetize the old material in a way that justified keeping it around.

The cost of storage is pretty low so maybe I'm reaching a bit here on their behalf. I have no idea what sort of scale they are at. Perhaps I just like to believe that people aren't trying to be evil.

trustfundbaby• 16 years ago

> I think it is time that companies reach a point in their understanding of users' reaction to the bait & switch.

For real. This always reminds me of the dude who tries to be friends with the girl so he can eventually date her, instead of simply asking her out, and risking the 'No' like a man.

Slimy.

there• 16 years ago

I would flip that around on you: I think it is time that companies reach a point in their understanding of users' reaction to the bait & switch.

i agree.

The value of your service to a user isn't going to increase simply due to the passage of time or growth of your site.

i disagree. many users may not pay on the first day because they don't see the value in it, or don't understand how the site works. but being able to use it for free and coming to depend on it may put a higher value on it over time.

how many users would pay $1 per month to access facebook now that all of their friends are on it and they use it every day? probably a lot. those users probably wouldn't have signed up for an account in the first place if they had to enter a credit card number.

YuriNiyazov• 16 years ago

"The value of your service to a user isn't going to increase simply due to the passage of time or growth of your site."

I disagree, at least in one specific case. A new dating site doesn't have enough of a userbase of the gender that I am interested in for me to signup and pay a monthly fee. If they successfully complete their marketing play, I will gladly sign up.

saurik• 16 years ago

The worst case outcome of this (which I think is useful to mention, but maybe it is obvious) is when another company manages to think through all of that and "succeeds": figuring out how to monetize their product in a way that actually seems like a fair value proposition to all parties if you think through this, but instead totally fails because there is some website offering the same service "for free". If users cared enough to think through the business models of the companies involved, they'd realize how doomed the second company's model is, where the best case scenario is that one day they log in and they've pulled a Scibd, and that they should probably not be willing to use a free service, but instead they just go with it, get angry when it either collapses or starts monetizing, and them glom on to whatever the next "for free" version is. :(

j_baker2• 16 years ago

It's not that they're trying to make money. It's how they're trying to make money. At the start of the blog post, it sounds like the author was satisfied with scribd. I'd be willing to bet that he'd have been willing to pay them money had they approached him in the correct way.

ianbishop• 16 years ago

I can't actually believe that they would go the paywall route. It honestly seemed a few months ago when they added HTML5 support that they were going in a really great direction and now I will avoid them like the plague.

points2• 16 years ago

I think the whole HTML5 thing was a big PR exercise to improve the way they are seen. Possibly also a big play to get acquired - "We're doing cool stuff with fonts! Buy us!".

Fundamentally though, they're about locking away documents behind a pay wall. And personally, I don't see their value proposition at all.

Andrew_Quentin2• 16 years ago

Their value proposition was to not lock documents away behind a pay wall. Even then they were not doing very well because of all the tag clouds and their irrelevant appearance on search results. They were the first though and do not have much competition. Quite an opportunity for someone looking for an idea.

inerte• 16 years ago

Scribd's HTML5 was about having crawlable (read: show up in Google) content.

Nothing wrong with that, btw.

underdown• 16 years ago

"readcasting" sounds like an excellent SEO siloing play. Lots of inter-related internal links. Good google-fu.

unohoo• 16 years ago

Did you try contacting them to clarify ? If so, what was their response ?

tshtf• 16 years ago

He did. From the post:

As a courtesy, I sent a prepublication draft of the above post to Scribd's press team and asked for a response. They were kind enough to reply to me pretty quickly with the following

storm• 16 years ago

I've never seen the appeal of Scribd, and I'm no fan of the direction they seem to be stumbling in, but it seems a bit unfair to dismiss invitations to join a user advisory board and/or come visit them as "not much of a response".

Even if both are mere PR exercises, it's an improvement on the kind of content-free hand waving I'd expect from a company desperately seeking profitability.

BrandonM• 16 years ago

Exactly. How can he call this "not much of a response?" As you pointed out, the message said, "I'd also like to extend an open invitation for you to come in and meet the team." To me, that sounds like a free trip to give direct user feedback and have a real chance to make a positive change.

Instead, it sounds like Mr. Goldman just wants to bitch. He feels like Scribd used him? Did he not use Scribd? At least Scribd provided value to him (as he indicated); whatever value he provided Scribd, he is now trying to destroy it with this blog post.

There was a submission on here last week: If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684732).

I never use Scribd, and I'm not really concerned either way with how successful they are. But I'm starting to get really annoyed with everyone's sense of entitlement these days. Louis CK hit it on the nose with his remark, "How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago." (http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56 - it's a great clip if you haven't seen it)

state_machine• 16 years ago

Well, it's "not much of a response" since it doesn't respond to his concerns. Inviting him to give further feedback is great and all, but while it acknowledged his issues with the Archive paywall (just by saying they could tune it -- not with a concrete solution), it completely ignored his privacy complaint about broadcasting reading activity.

Basically, it was a response, but "not much" of one.

thaumaturgy3• 16 years ago

I think there are a few takeaways here:

* You have to charge from the very beginning. If you start a free service, and then try to establish a pay system afterward, your users will feel tricked and trapped and they will rebel loudly. Scribd seems to have been in a hurry to get adoption, so they made it free to host documents; as this guy said though, he much preferred hosting with Scribd over doing it manually on his university's web server. That could have been Scribd's value proposition, and a small yearly fee for that probably would have worked OK.

* SaaS could get itself in trouble if there are too many incidents like this. I already hear from clients that are concerned about using online services; the most common questions are, "What if they change their terms?", "What if they go away?", and those are legitimate concerns. Many of my clients aren't the most computer-interested people, so if they have concerns like that, then that means that stories like this have penetrated very deep into the consumer market.

masklinn2• 16 years ago

> If you start a free service, and then try to establish a pay system afterward, your users will feel tricked and trapped and they will rebel loudly.

If you lock behind a paywall things previously available for free, sure. And they'll be right too.

An other option is to add features which are only behind a new paywall. Issue then is providing additional services of value and a way for users to discover them.

thaumaturgy3• 16 years ago

Just as a case study, Reddit did exactly that, and their users flipped out. Reddit ended up doing OK with it -- they've made at least enough from it to be able to afford some infrastructure upgrades and at least one new hire -- but there was a pretty vocal not-small group of users that were unhappy about it.

crystalis2• 16 years ago

It seems like Scribd would solve more problems if they let uploaders pay to give their readers free access. I'm not the Scribd user; the guy publishing with them is.

dinedal• 16 years ago

Scribd would rather increase the amount of content on it's servers by making uploading easy and free. While the guy that publishes the article is really the Scribd user, he can publish elsewhere if the price makes it too much of a hassle. The viewer has less of a choice, if it's only published on Scribd it's either pay up or go without.

I don't agree with their choice (or methods) but it makes sense for them to do this.

ulf3• 16 years ago

charging from the beginning actually scratches two itches: the business can evolve steadily, the revenue benefits the company. And second, as a paying customer I have exactly those "rights" the OP would like to have in this scenario. Trying to implement the early-pay-plan is a whole other story, and I doubt that it would have worked for scribd, had they started charging money without any content. classic chicken-egg-problem

dfranke• 16 years ago

I think the takeaway is a lot broader: never assume that a company won't do evil things with your data if you don't have a service contract with them saying that they can't. See also: http://xkcd.com/743

boredguy8• 16 years ago

More scary: http://xkcd.com/792/

mikecane3• 16 years ago

People still don't understand all of the things they are agreeing to on sites like this:

Scribd Creator Terms Of Service http://ipadtest.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/scribd-creator-term...

jacquesm3• 16 years ago

A whole pile of data on scribd was never uploaded by the original owners though, but by people posting links to pdfs to sites like HN.

acqq9• 16 years ago

Can anybody please tell me why does HN actively support such a site?

mikecane3• 16 years ago

I don't doubt there's piracy or unofficial uploading. But Scribd has also made a push to get self-published writers. And they miss the point someone downvoted.

j_baker2• 16 years ago

Seriously? Do you really read the entire terms of service every time you sign up for a new service? Besides that, just because you have the legal right to do something to your customers doesn't mean it's a good idea. I mean, did you realize that most stores aren't obligated to take back returns? And yet, the biggest company in the world (Wal Mart) is very well-known for taking back anything. There have even been cases of people bringing back diapers claiming they were all used beforehand.

mikecane3• 16 years ago

When it comes to TOS dealing with writing and publishing, yes, I do indeed read the entire TOS. When you go get a job, do you inquire into the terms and conditions?

ax0n• 16 years ago

Relevant: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cartoon_the_only_consta...

adorton• 16 years ago

That's not realistic at all. If Facebook really did that to your car, they wouldn't leave the note.

kingkilr• 16 years ago

I don't care if they want to establish a paywall, that's there perogative, what I don't like is taking my content, which I uploaded under the belief I'd be able to host it there at no cost to end users (persumably subsidised by ads) and then charging my readers for it. I post my content (mostly slides from talks and such) for readers, I'd probably even pay to put my content there, it's rather convenient.

dataguy• 16 years ago

The last part: Absolutely. They got it the wrong way. I mean - okay - they have the right to establish the paywall.

But they are scare off the wrong people: the readers. Why use a service to pay for reading something that the publishers WANT to give me for free? Not enough: Many publishers would pay for it, as it is convenient and absolutely user friendly.

This won't work. Well no, actually it will work - but not as a service that proclaims "show your work to the world for free".

jmount• 16 years ago

This kind of service is just another "Brill's content" type scam.

jacoblyles• 16 years ago

Early Scribd broke the web by taking open format documents, putting them in a proprietary wrapper, and calling it a "service".

Middle Scribd fixed their own brokenness by moving to HTML 5 (which is sometimes more convenient than a PDF, and is certainly "open" and accessible).

Late Scribd is again breaking the web by moving documents behind a paywall. Some qualities are just baked into a company's DNA.

al3x• 16 years ago

Thank you. I've never understood why Scribd exists at all. The web has done fine at moving documents around before Scribd, and it'll keep doing it fine long after they disappear.

daleharvey• 16 years ago

emailing pdf's is not my definition of "doing fine", I am not following the current drama much, but I do thank scribd for letting me look at content I would have otherwise ignored on seeing ".pdf"

robryan• 16 years ago

I would prefer a service that just focuses on the .pdf discovery rather than a viewer, so like Google Scholar with some social services around it.

You can still get the viewing stats, your just not at the services whim, simply move your file and the service will just remove the listing. Makes sense to me, probably some stuff like this out there seems fairly obvious.

kmfrk• 16 years ago

This reminds me of chi.mp. I recently suspected that my Gmail was hacked, so I clicked maniacally to get to the page where I could reset my password.

I discover that my chi.mp account is the back-up e-mail, which is great; the service lets me decide which e-mail address to forward to.

I go to chi.mp, think for a minute to remember my password, and get to the e-mail-forwarding screen. The account is set to forward to an e-mail address that is inconvenient (I can't remember the reason), so I remove the forwarding I've set up and---

"Something, something, you need a Pro account to create a forwarding address."

What the hell is a Pro account, I think to myself, a thought that is quickly eclipsed by the fact that a) The guys screwed me over without telling me, and b) I have no way of saving my e-mail account from a potential invader, unless I pay these <expletive>s.

I have yet to e-mail them and give them shit for it, but I didn't want to let it ruin my week, but I'll be sure to contact them when I can muster the time and energy.

kareemm• 16 years ago

HopToadApp.com did the same to me. About a year ago, I signed up for their free plan. It allowed two users, so I added our lead engineer.

Recently, he left and we added another engineer. So I removed engineer #1 and couldn't add engineer #2 unless I paid to upgrade the account. I don't mind paying when it makes sense, but a) HopToad was totally unwilling to grandfather the account, which meant I couldn't add the new engineer, and b) there was no messaging that the plan changed. I found out about it when I tried to add engineer #2. Lame.

moondowner• 16 years ago

If people put the documents available for download for free, I think they should be left that way, no one likes someone else to makes actions for them without their knowledge.

Everybody is surprised when someone tells him "Why have you made the document available for download only via purchase?"

If they don't fix this thing soon I'll stop using Scribd completely.

Also, a really funny sentence in the response from Scribd:

> You’re right that our communication around the Archive should have been more clear.

It sounds like, yeah, we know, but we like it this way for now.

aneth• 16 years ago

I've encountered a few documents that were 1 page application forms for community resources, and all were shocked when those were suddenly behind a rather expensive paywall. I also was really annoyed the first time I noticed some obscure document I read was broadcast to all my "followers." That means I've encountered both of these major beefs myself. I was never a scribd user, but I sure as hell would never use them now. This is not an issue of not charging early - it's expertsexchange all over again.

alexyim• 16 years ago

I feel that the main issue is the lack of open and direct communication with the users.

Sure, making the paywall opt-in by default increases conversions. But you still have to tell the user about it rather have them discover one day that a lot of their documents are no longer being read. That sucks.

folbec• 16 years ago

if anything is "free", YOU are the product sold.

mmastrac2• 16 years ago

From the FAQ (this is crazy):

Your documents will automatically be entered into the Archive after an initial period of time. You can recall a document from the Archive by opening the document's properties, clicking the Archive Status tab, then clicking the Recall from Archive command. If a document's properties page doesn't have an Archive Status tab, then that document has not yet been placed into the Scribd Archive. To learn how to edit your documents' properties, please see our Writer's Guide.

After a couple months your document will return to the Archive, and you can repeat this process to recall it again.

tzs2• 16 years ago

Or you can go change the global setting so that none of your documents go into the archive.

mmastrac2• 16 years ago

Conveniently not mentioned in the FAQ.

I changed it for my own account only after reading the article. Funny enough, it's an inversely-worded checkbox in there (unlike all of the other options):

[ ] Do not include my documents in the Scribd Archive program. Learn more.

tzs2• 16 years ago

In the time it took him to write his rant, he could have clicked the checkbox to make all of his old content available for free again.

When you use a free service, you have to expect them to need to make money somehow--and that means you should expect them to try changing the mix of what is free and what is paid now and then, and changing defaults. Accordingly, you should expect that on occasion you might have to change settings in order to get the thing to work the way you like.

sscheper• 16 years ago

That paywall pays for hosting, the platform and the tools that guy used--not to mention the fact that it also pays for hundreds of jobs and fuels the entrepreneurial economy. If that causes a benign blogger to add the service to his or her shitlist, then I think Scribd will live on.

patio11• 16 years ago

Guys: you could write your next software for people like this gentleman, or you could write it for a 50 year old woman who pays money for software and services. Choose wisely.

DJN• 16 years ago

Well said. This morale of this story is in line with an old adage - Nothing goes for nothing.

When you don't pay for a service, you shouldn't expect anything in return. A guarantee of perpetual free access has to be paid for somehow and if they are not making money from ads presumably because nobody's seeing or clicking on them, then all bets are off!

You get what you pay for. Next time look for a price tag.

papaf• 16 years ago

Except that, historically, the internet has been all about getting something for nothing. This is why were using complex modern web browsers for free to view a site that doesn't charge us.

Also, Scribd would be nothing without the thousands of hours people have spent uploading content without charging Scribd. The situation isn't as clear cut as you make out.

Robin_Message• 16 years ago

Indeed. I also thought the following comment from Scribd showed what is wrong with their mindset:

  As a start-up, we're constantly trying to strike the right
  balance: building products that people love but that also
  help us make money (to cover server cost and everything
  else associated with running a company).

Umm, surely as a company you are trying to do more than cover your running costs? Or are the saying "As a start-up" profitability is irrelevant and all they care about is covering their costs whilst increasing their market share? A larger share in a market no-one is actually willing to pay for is not worth more than a smaller one, what with them both being worth nothing and all.

gthank2• 16 years ago

A lot of people have these things they call lifestyle businesses: if they're meeting payroll and expenses, and loving what they do for a living, they've 100% satisfied their goals.

I'm not sure that's what is going on in Scribd's case, though.

motters• 16 years ago

This reminds me of what happened at the end of the dot com bubble, where the hasty erection of a paywall usually meant that the death of a site was imminent, and users often did feel "tricked and trapped" or that their community relationships had been violated.

noonespecial• 16 years ago

Getting a bunch of people to give your free service content and then suddenly changing policy so that you can charge for that submitted content always felt pretty sleazy to me.

Kind of like raising a bunch of money for starving orphans and then buying yourself a yacht.

maconic• 16 years ago

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and comments, Scribd just announced they are making changes: http://blog.scribd.com/2010/09/21/the-scribd-archive-an-apol...

Scribd Puts My Old Uploads Behind a Paywall and Goes Onto My Shitlist

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