Official resignation from the Sage-Too project
It has been some time now since I’ve contributed anything meaningful to the Sage-Too project. I guess I abandoned the project a long time ago, but here is my official resignation.
My reason for resigning from the project?
Basically, for a long time already, I have been disillusioned by the selfish nature of the average Firefox user. Thankfully not all Firefox users are selfish, but the selfish ones are very definitely in the majority. I guess that the selfishness is typical of most FOSS projects, where the average user is only interested in what he/she can get out of the project, without having to contribute anything in return. Also, through some strange twist of logic, based of course on selfishness, many Firefox users seem to think they have a right to deny people their right to recover their costs. They take the content (Or whatever else is offered for free), yet feel they have the right to block advertising!
I should make it very clear that I loath, hate and detest advertising, but I accept it as a necessary evil.
Sage-Too follows the ad blocking philosophy, which I don’t agree with, and thus feel that I can no longer be part of the project.
Hopefully Higmmer, and others, will continue the development of Sage-Too.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Hi Mike, it’s been a long time!
I wrote an entry about your resignation. Please visit my blog:
http://himag.blog26.fc2.com/blog-entry-302.html
Click [Switch to English] for English translation (Javascript required).
I really thank you for your great work.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Hey Higmmer
Yeah… Too long.
I read your blog post and please know this: I definitely do not count you amongst the typically selfish Firefox users!
There is a difference, although subtle, between implementing filtering for the sake of security and implementing filtering because one feels they have the right to remove ads from content.
February 19th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I’m sorry to see that you are so upset about all of this. Your points are easy to understand but I do not know that I agree with them. I personally don’t have a stand on the ad blocking. On one side I see my family and friends being infected with all sorts of malware, on the other I see the person who developed the site being shorted money and having his or her end product not look the way it was intended to. I would not mind having adds on my pages if there were some way to guarantee that they were not malicious and that they would not pop out and get in front of what I am attempting to read. Since that is not something anyone has given me thus far I choose to take the safe route and block advertisements.
Now so far as the average user, my mom is what most would call an average user. She does not currently have the ability to contribute anything to an open source project. Her skills in life are not in programming or documentation. She does not understand enough to be a beta tester and she hasn’t the time to learn these skills. She often asks what is better about one piece of open source software over its commercial equivalent looking for what is in it for her. When she does have one she likes she does recommend it open source or not to her friends. I think this is about as much as you could ever hope for from an average user.
I am always sorry to see anyone leave a project, but hopefully your life takes you to a new and exciting future that feels more rewarding to you that this has. Thank you for all of your hard work and good luck.
Vvall
February 20th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Blocking ads to avoid some-or-other malware attack is, as far as I’m concerned, a bit like filtering email to avoid spam. It’s a rather apathetic approach that does little or nothing to solve the problem. To give you and example of what I’m talking about: I hate spam, but I don’t filter my email. Any spam I receive, I report. I report phishing to the company/organization that is being used to cover the attack. 419s I report to the FBIs Internet fraud unit. Spam trying to sell software, I report to the sales manager of the software house in question. All spam I receive gets reported to SpamCop and KnuJon. If you want the problem to go away, you need to fight it!
So, I guess the same applies to sites that cover malware with advertising. At the very least you should stay away from those sites, while the best action would be to report them. There are numerous ways of reporting sites. For example, AVG includes a plugin for both Firefox and IE that displays a little green check mark next to each result of a Google search. The green check mark provides a visual indication of whether a site is considered safe or not. It also provides a mechanism for reporting sites considered harmful.
Your mother sounds way more tech savvy than mine
The thing with testing is that most people think that it requires special skills, but in most cases it doesn’t. If someone has used a piece of software and is familiar with its workings (Or even only a small portion of its workings), surely it’s no big deal to install a beta and check it against the known or expected state?
I plan to continue my work on the Wizz RSS project, even though the average Wizz RSS user is even less deserving than the average Sage-Too user. Developing Firefox extensions falls very squarely into a longtime adage of mine: Life is like a pubic hair on a toilet seat - Eventually you get pissed off
February 20th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Sorry and good luck. As a general user I want point out that having upgraded from Sage to Sage-Too (where they related?) quite a while ago, this is is FIRST message I’ve ever seen on the Sage-Too feed.
As someone who uses this extension daily I would have not objected to a sponsored version. I would have been happy to pay a small fee for it as well a la the App Store model. Or even an outright donation as with the Firefox 2.0 campaign. But no one asked. I always wonder about these great add-ons… where they come from If there was a web site with more info I never though to look for it.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:45 am
I second Dan’s opinion. Thanks for the great work.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am
@Jigar: I’ll post a link to the last Sage-Too build that fixed the icon problem.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:40 am
@Jigar: I think that this is the XPI you are looking for:- http://www.wizzrss.com/XPIs/sage-too101.xpi
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:33 am
FYI, the entry itself doesn’t state *who* is leaving the Sage-Too project — it’s only clear after reading through the comments. Hopefully, if the other coders don’t feel like they can keep Sage-Too afloat, they’ll be able to join the revamped Sage project.
I’m a non-coder Linux near-newbie that’s contributing by writing/editing stuff, and have to agree with the fellow that said most people in FLOSS/OSS do seem to be active for the thrill of it. Between that, the strongly libertarian leanings of the computer world, and the wild variety of RSS-reader alternatives, it’s no surprise that paid versions or advertising doesn’t go over well.
That said, I switched from Windows to Linux last Summer, and I think that the “selfish” user issue you saw is the result of how Win/Mac/Firefox users are led to believe only coding/graphics geniuses can help. I certainly never participated until, as a Linux user, I saw “here’s how YOU can help” messages everywhere in the extended community I looked. There’s certainly a wide gap in terms of participation between Linux & commercial OSes, or FLOSS Firefox variants (Iceweasel, Swiftweasel, etc.) vs. original Firefox.
BTW, last I heard, many available filters (certainly the ones Google or my ISP uses) automatically submit their data to the big international blacklisting agencies. I haven’t heard of more than a few 419 scams being tackled by officials, however; that’s why many users started dangerously taking matters into their own hands by toying with the scammer.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:32 am
its a shame.. but seriously someone needs to carry on Sage-Too… these two bugs need to be fixed… i’d glady click a shit load of adverts if someone could fix this addon and make it less noob. AT least make it match the Maxthon RSS sidebar in functionality and features. Its about the closet RSS addon to even come close to pure awesome.. unlike other rss firefox addons.
=======================================
-Tooltip feed popup.. needs to be INSTANT
Postby Gorziller on Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:52 pm
It seems as though the RSS sidebar addon Sage-Too.. uses a default OS tooltip type popup when you mouse over the feed items list.. as a maxthon user the rss sidebar is one of its best features done right from the start.. Sage-Too is about the only addon in Firefox that even comes close to that without all the useless junk that the other rss addons seems to attach.. And as the really the only important things are getting the rss feeds in a manageable layout, and a 2nd panel to see the feed items, from there you just mouse over each feed item to get a bit more info before deciding to open that rss link in a tab or not.
Problem is that Sage-Too seems to use the default tooltip and I can’t see anywhere of changing its delay settings.. even in the source files… not that I want too delay it more.. its already ridiculously long.. I like to mouse over item feeds and get an instantly changing description for the next item.. unfortunately I’m being slowed down
.. surely there must be some firefox specif setting that is controlling this.. as even the toolbar tips in the ff ui are using the same displaying toolbar style, and what seems to be the same Delay.
=================
-rss feed list always delayed before showing up!
clicking on a new rss feed always takes it sweet ass time updating the feed list before actually display the rss feed list items in the 2nd panel… this is completely retarded.. if you’ve already got a previous cached rss list for that rss feed… why doesn’t it just display the last cached version INSTANTLY!!!!!!!!.. while also checking for any updates.. that way if there wasn’t any updates to make to the feed item list.. then no big deal you’ve got the latest update already right infront of you… and you didn’t have to wait for some crap rss feed design to finish checking for any updates before showing the feed item list!!!… does anyone get this retardation.. you can click on 1 rss feed, and then a 2nd WAIT zzzzzzz.. and then in the space of 5seconds go back to clicking on the 1st rss feed… and have to again Wait zzzzzzz.. and it doesn’t show anything before its checked for updates.. so depending on how busy your connection and that server is you’re gonna be waiting just to see the rss feed list..
need sorting out! the feed item list should be displayed in 0ms INSTANT!!! if its already got a pre-cached list from earlier.. updating it once its got a new update to show.. NOT just showing nothing! until its checked that rss feed server.
AAargh crap design ..the timeout settings is pointless it should be working as I have described
http://www.wizzrss.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=16
March 29th, 2009 at 10:35 am
It would also be prtty awesome if the feedlist actually grabbed than rss feeds site favicon to display next to the feed url….
that and more.. i’ve already started hacking some of the skin files and gui code to make this addon look a little better, i’d glady post my enhancements.. if the bugs as listed above could be fixed.. they are beyond my coding at this moment.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:03 pm
@Gorzilla: Why do you call them bugs? THEY ARE NOT BUGS BUT FEATURES even if they’re bad things. Let me say that I cannot understand why you stand to continue using this addon from lots of other feed readers such as Maxthon. And it’s nonsense to complain here, where the developer officially announced resignation.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:11 am
When I watch a TV channel (not a paid one) and commercials start, I stop watching - I switch the channel for a while, go to make some coffee, or just turn audio off an chat with my wife. Am I stealing the station’s money? Do you think that to be fair I should be sitting there staring at the commercials? Do you do it?
Think about it - I do exactly the same thing that adblock users do - I take the content, but skip the ads. And I’m somehow pretty sure you do the same thing…
April 20th, 2009 at 6:18 am
@Bartek: Of course this is always the illogical argument used by those who block ads to justify their actions. Using an ad blocker is not the same as skipping ads on TV.
If you want to use a more accurate analogy, you should draw a comparison between a web page and a newspaper. Do you cut all the ads out of the newspaper before you read it?
I’m also pretty sure that if it were possible to buy two versions of the same newspaper. One with ads and one without ads, that you’d pay more for the one without ads.
You should also remember that TV stations earn revenue from advertising regardless of whether anyone actually watches the ad or not. As far as I know it’s impossible for a TV station to monitor the number of people who actually viewed an ad, but as we all know, advertising on the Internet is different. On the Internet it is possible to count the number of people who “viewed” an ad. We also know that revenue earned from Internet advertising is most often directly related to the number of people who “viewed” the ad. Of course in this case by “viewed” I mean loaded… Because it loaded it doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually looked at it.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:13 am
[…] Sage-Too.” If this were true, Professor Amrit Tiwana would have noticed that I’m no longer involved with Sage-Too development. In fact, I don’t think that anyone is actively working on Sage-Too anymore… […]
June 14th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I’m sorry to see you stopping your Sage-Too work. Sage-Too is by FAR my most used feature in Firefox (not just most used ad-on!).
Regarding the ethics of advertisements:
Doesn’t the web owner explicitly offer the feed?
There are cases where the web site owner doesn’t even want ad-revenue (Wikipedia, .gov sites, political advocate sites, etc).
Also, it must be possible for those who really want their feed-reader-using readers to see ads to include ads in the feed - even if it’s only some ad text with a link below each article. Feeds even include images, so the ads could even be clickable images.
That leaves supposedly selfish Firefox users. so you think Firefox should only be used by those who contribute to it? Perhaps most people have other interests and skill and contribute in other areas of reality (helping maintain freedom, volunteering to help needy). Or are you upset that out of the 300,000,000 Firefox users, there are several thousand (0.001%) who are ungrateful?
I do very much hope you will reconsider.
I am very thankful for Sage and Sage-Too. I would be happy to pay for it. And I’d be thrilled if you made the custom style sheet I created and sent to you the default.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Peter I’m pretty sure that your 0.001% is way off the mark. My experience tells me that the majority of FOSS users only use FOSS software because it is free! They pay nothing for the software, contribute nothing to the development and/or maintenance of the software, yet feel they have the right to complain when that software doesn’t live up to their expectations.
Please also understand that there is a fine line between complaining and offering constructive criticism. I think that you and I have been down this road before
Anyway, it is due to selfishness of the majority of Firefox users (Way way way more than your 0.001%) that I withdraw my support for Sage-Too. Perhaps, one day, when FOSS/Firefox users learn to respect the rights of others, I might reconsider.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hi, a privately customized version, Sage++ for Fx3.0/3.5 is available now. It contains most features of Sage-Too and more. Note that it’s distributed with no warranty, no support. If you can use it at your own risk, please visit my site:
http://himag.blog26.fc2.com/blog-entry-234.html?lang=en
June 16th, 2009 at 7:11 am
@Gorzilla: Please know this, it’s just a privately customized Sage, so I’m not going to add something I don’t need. Besides that, some considerations:
Tooltip issue: The delay time of tooltip is hard-coded. It’s not easy to change that without rebuilding Firefox from the source code. You should ask Mozilla people to make it configurable.
Middle-clicking on feeditem: You can change the behavior by editing bookmarksTreeClick() or openURI() in sage.js. I may bring it into the next release.
Feed favicons: A trivial.
Feeditem caching: Nonsense. The original Sage was designed to be lightweight so it has no database. A fundamental redesign is necessary, and it will be no longer Sage-something. You should choose other “heavy” feed readers if you need the cache mechanism.
Finally, this place isn’t support bbs of Sage-Too/Sage++. I will never reply any longer about that, sorry.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:55 am
@Higmmer: Thanks !!!!!!! You made my day!
PS. Is there some place I can monitor for future updates? Your blog? URL?
June 16th, 2009 at 9:59 am
@Peter Lairo: After you installed Sage++, it will be updated automatically. And you can get information by “Options-Support Information” menu, but it often contains a lot of mistakes because it’s generated by a machine translation from Japanese. Don’t have over-expectations.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:07 am
@Higmmer: Good for you!
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:21 am
Thx a lot for the FF3.5 Version !!
June 26th, 2009 at 4:34 am
@Higmmer: thanks for continuing work on the Sage++. I have tried to create a Czech localization for it, but found-out that I cannot use national characters (for example ěščřřžýýá) in the sage.dtd file. Could this be corrected in some future fversion, please?
June 26th, 2009 at 4:45 am
@MartinSt: There should already be a cs-CZ localization.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:28 am
@MartinSt: I guess it’s not my fault. Are you using UTF-8 encoding in your file?
June 26th, 2009 at 9:31 am
@Higmmer: This is only the beginning! Eventually they will drive you crazy
June 26th, 2009 at 10:34 am
@Mike: Now, I can really understand what you said
Sorry to bother you, don’t hesitate to close the comment form if you’re annoyed. They’re using it as a support or complaints office in spite of my repeated cautions…
June 26th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
@Higmmer: Something that my (almost) five year association with Firefox has taught me: - no good deed goes unpunished.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
@Mike:
It’s sad to see you going away from the project. It was a wonderful day when you stepped up to carry the Sage flag to FF2 and I absolutely loved your Sage-Too and all mods and contributions from the other developers.
Anyways, I understand what your going thru so I wish you the best on your new endeavors and development.
Goodspeed! Wolf.
July 1st, 2009 at 6:01 am
Sorry to say this but if you don’t like ad blocking you sound like a real ass.. I’ve since moved on.. anyway….
July 1st, 2009 at 6:27 am
Of course Joe Mama is a perfect example of what I’ve been talking about
Keep moving Joe!
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 am
[…] was going to package up the existing Sage-Too .xpi, but while following the discussion around the net I noticed that Sage-Too has been replaced by a version of Sage++ that runs on 3.5, which as far as […]
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
It used it very conveniently.
I want to say one remark reward.
Thank you.
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I just wanted to say thank you for all the work you’ve put into OSS like Sage and other projects.
I also wanted to note that I’m enjoying the irony that there are selfish firefox users demanding their features in the comments to this post in which you disparage them and announce that you’re not working on sage anymore
July 6th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Thanks for the great product! However, I would have one small feature request - to have the possibility to ‘update feeds automatically’ for each of the rss entry separately. So one could choose to update automatically selected feeds.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:15 am
@Sandra: Read the title of this entry again. I can only say my Sage++ has ‘automatically check update for specified folder’ feature, not for each feeds.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:56 am
@ Higmeer: Yes, thank you! Any thoughts of incorporating your version of Sage (++) into the official Firefox add-on page? Don’t call me paranoid - just thinking in terms of the security/backdoors/etc of this new add-on…
July 8th, 2009 at 11:42 am
@Sandra: No, it’s just a ‘private’ version and I don’t wanna get involved with AMO. If you’re concerned about security, DO NOT USE it.
BTW, the AMO guarantees security of add-ons? NO! For example, the ‘official’ Sage has multiple vulnerabilities. I reported them over two years ago, but it has been left abandoned until now.
July 11th, 2009 at 3:19 am
Good on you Higmmer
All of the security paranoia on the Internet, with most of the paranoid having very little understanding of what security is all about.
I guess most of those who use ad blockers fall into the same category
July 15th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Hidiho,
Sage-Too is the best rss-feed addon for firefox and I’m very happy, that the addon is available for firefox 3.5. I LOVE YOUR PROGRAMM!
I’ve got an idea: we can do a website, with intelligent advertising. Infos about websites which are good and which pay for their information - in useful content.
I’ve got a good client who want to push money in the PR of his website. The anti-virus programm avira-antivir is doing the same. And their idea works since a long time.
Come on man!
Talk with me and we can make your development to a real pleasure. Feel free and write me an e-mail: pmDELETE-THIS-ANTI-SPAM-TEXT@netzor.de
See you later aligator,
peter
July 16th, 2009 at 6:15 am
I wish that everyone had the same attitude as Peter
July 16th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Ok, we will pay for the download of sage-too. Please contact me soon!
pmANTI-SPAM-TEXT@netzor.de. Or let’s discuss with Jabber: der-pe@jabber.ccc.de. I hope I hear from you soon.
July 17th, 2009 at 1:07 am
I don’t understand this arrogance - “If you’re concerned about security, DO NOT USE it.”. With AMO, at least there is a higher probability that some user will look through the programme (as you did probably, when you mentioned some vulnerabilities in original Sage), and find out, whether it contains intentional/planned backdoors etc or not.
@Mike: There is nothing wrong being concerned with security in today’s internet (I’m personally concerned only in that my saved passwords in FF won’t leak out) - if you generalize it with paranoia, then please.
July 17th, 2009 at 1:58 am
Существуют определенные, уже устоявшиеся правила по уходу за своей внешностью. Но все то, что мы всегда считали правильным, не всегда оказывается таковым…
1. Не выщипывать волоски, растущие выше линии бровей.
На самом деле, подобные волоски создают ложные тени и даже могут изменять форму лба, затеняя выпуклые участки. Чтобы оценить, насколько правильно вы выщипали брови, нужно смотреть на себя в зеркало прямо, но никак не вниз или, наоборот, задрав подбородок, – это исказит восприятие. Волоски следует выщипывать от внутренней поверхности бровей к наружной.
Подробная информация на странице portalsvazak.ru 2. Всегда очерчивать контур губ контурным карандашом.
Это тоже заблуждение. Например, если обвести контур красным карандашом, а на сами губы нанести помаду нейтрального тона, то может получиться не очень симпатично. Лучше использовать у края губ помаду более темного оттенка, а на выпуклой части – светлую помаду, сверху которой кладется блеск для губ.
3. Сначала жидкая пудра, потом основа для макияжа.
Сначала на кожу наносится основа под макияж и только потом – жидкая пудра. Таким образом можно выправить недостатки кожи, убрать прыщи и создать рельефность формы лица.
4. Цвет основы под макияж должен соответствовать натуральному тону кожи лица.
Лучше подбирать цвет основы под макияж в соответствии с тоном кожи вашей шеи, точнее, в соответствии с тоном кожи над ключицей. Эта точка должна считаться отправной в вашем макияже. Подобный подход объясняется тем, что кожа на лице имеет тенденцию к изменениям: она краснеет на ветру или бледнеет от сильного стресса, то есть цвет кожи лица зависит от вашего настроения, а значит не может быть чем-то постоянным и служить критерием выбора. Кожа над ключицей более соответствует естественному цвету.
July 17th, 2009 at 7:22 am
@Sandra: It isn’t arrogance! It is a very simple statement.
Higmmer has provided something that no one is forced to use. He has done this in his own time and at his own expense. He provides no guarantees, nor does he provide support. He has been kind enough to do this for YOU and is under no obligation to provide you with anything else. Therefore, if you are unhappy with any aspect of the software, the solution is very simple: DO NOT USE IT!
July 17th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Hi,
I need the E-Mail adress of Mike. We’ll push money in this project. But we need contact with the developer/founder. Please E-Mail me his adress: pmPLEASE-REMOVE-THIS-ANTI-SPAM-TEXT@netzor.de.
best regards,
peter
July 17th, 2009 at 10:00 am
@ Mike:
Are you the developer of Sage-Too? We want to spend money on this project. When you’re the developer, so please E-Mail me your ICQ, Jabber-Adress or whatever - then we can discuss over the chat. When not, so please give me information about the contact to the chief of sage-too. Then we’ll blow new air in this project.
Please write me an E-Mail: PLEASE-REMOVE-THIS-ANTI-SPAM-TEXT@netzor.de
Sorry for my school-english.
Best regards from germany,
Peter
July 21st, 2009 at 3:46 am
@ everyone. Sage-Too is the most user-friendly feed reader I have yet discovered for Firefox. The styling & layout are exactly how I would like to view all news sites - simple, clean, accessible, etc.
It is a shame that the politics of the web / open-source have potentially damaged my second favourite web toy (Web Developer plugin is still #1).
If you want the appreciation of an average Joe, then you have mine for the work already done.
Would I pay for Sage-Too (or run an ad-supported version)? YES!
Would I swap Sage-Too for another reader? NO! (I have tried a few whilst the previous version would not work with FF3.5 and none met my needs or expectations).
You have helped make my life easier to organise and changed the way I use the net.
Thank you and good luck with where-ever your life takes you now….
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
I’m so glad this plugins continues.
Sorry to hear that the creator has to put up with so much shit that he had to take a break.
On more then one OSS project I see indeed that peoples attitude is driving developers away from their projects. Simple courtesy, showing some respect and gratitude seems to be to much to ask for.
New features are useless and/or too little too late and long rants about the fact that their request didn’t make it in the latest release is what I see mainly.
Thanks for your efforts in creating and supporting this extension until now is all I can say.
Cheers,
Michel
August 21st, 2009 at 11:32 pm
I believe the logic that users do not have the right to control what they see is flawed. The display of advertisements should be based on goodwill rather than forced onto the users.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:56 am
@teohhanhui: No one said anything about limiting users rights. Did anyone force you to view this blog? So you still have the right to view whatever you like, but when you do view something, you should respect the publisher’s rights and take the good with the bad, otherwise, stay away.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Mike,
Being in IT, I can see both sides of this. I feel that developers like yourself (which I am in school to become) who spend countless hours on something should be compensated. However, the users you summarily dismiss are supposedly the reason for your work. And the Sage-Too source code is GPL, which is either because a) you used previous code that forces you to use GPL, or you decided to make it open source. Either way, you chose to create this add-on, and getting pissed off at people trying to protect themselves from the very real dangers of false advertising on the Interwebs is sort of self-serving. While I do respect your view that all people should be in the know and react in accordance with good information, the truth is that most users just don’t. If every citizen of the US was willing and able to stop crime and handle the issues that the police do with the same understanding and professionalism as they do, there would not need to be a police department. If all people were as astute as yourself, this whole argument would be moot, as surely someone else would have created an add-on to do exactly what Sage-Too does. It may sound harsh, but I understand what it’s like to give extra hours to unappreciative users - and not get paid for it. I do it nearly every week. But if you want to get paid for your work and that is a true intention - don’t use Firefox add-ons as your product market. Create something standalone that you can charge for.
I understand your frustration and I know that users are by and large very unappreciative of efforts they don’t even have the slightest clue about or understand, yet they demand it. It sucks, but it’s IT, man.
I hate to see someone talented leave a good project, but to each his own. Take care, I hope you don’t take offense to my banter.
Charlie
August 25th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
@Charlie: You almost got it
There is a difference between compensation and respect. The whole issue has nothing to do with getting paid for my work. In fact I already have a stand-alone feed reader which I have also chosen to open source.
The issue does however have everything to do with respect. It goes without saying that in “normal life” we conduct ourselves with a reasonable amount of respect for others. It is considered acceptable to use words like “please” and “thank you” when dealing with other people, yet when it comes to open source software, especially Firefox, all of those respectabilities seem to disappear.
Even worse than vanishing respectabilities is the inexplicable situation where many (It seems especially prevalent amongst Firefox users) seem to think they have the right to disregard the rights of others. Of course everyone manages to scrape up some inane excuse for their behaviour, much of which is nothing more than bullshit! Protecting yourself from the dangers of false advertising by using an ad blocker is just as useless as fighting spam by implementing email filtering. In fact anyone should realize that these actions only serve to aggravate the problem - More people use ad blockers - Advertisers see less income from advertising, so they advertise even more, and so it goes.
While I don’t expect compensation for my open source efforts, people need to realize that these efforts do incur a financial cost. It is not only for myself that I stand on my anti-ad blocking soap box, but for all who use advertising as a means of financing a service which they give to others. Selfish people just need to open their eyes - To stop for a moment and try to see things through the eyes of those who provide the service which they so greedily consume. Perhaps that will add a little more respect to the whole open source community, which I’m sure will only be a good thing.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I guess the main problem with the whole ad blocking thing, is that people like Wladimir Palant (The Adolph Hitler of ad blockers) and his “Ads were yesterday,” don’t exactly inspire any thought amongst selfish Firefox users.
September 19th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
I have no problem with static ads. I’m brain injured, and the flash ads make it just about impossible for me to browse. Roll down ads, ads that scroll across the page - java ads. ads that tell me “hot women are waiting to speak to you in [my city]”
Thanks for calling me a selfish. Take your project and have a nice life.
September 19th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
@brain injury survivor: Never once have I said that ALL Firefox users are selfish, but I guess, if you want to count yourself amongst the selfish, it’s your prerogative.
Of course brain injury is nothing more than another inane excuse, because, last time I looked, ads were certainly not the only flashing images on the Web.
October 1st, 2009 at 5:29 am
It’s about the same analogy You used to counter Bartek comment way above - You cannot buy newspaper without ads, but in the newspaper ads doesn’t prevent You from seeing the content.
In newspaper You don’t have flash whole screen ads with floating ‘x’ which escapes when You want to click it.
I have also nothing against static ads, but I won’t be spending my time to choose exact filter to put those static in, and those flashy out/content preventing, it’s just not worth my time.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:40 am
I’m sure that if it were possible to publish flash type ads in a newspaper, you’d get them.
October 16th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Mike,
i get your point and understand your frustration. But…
does this mean that you paid or donated for every software you have installed in your PC?
Think about it.. Probably you have many application in your PC, probably you read many blogs, newspapers, feeds, wiki articles etc.
Did you pay for any of those services? (Do we pay for firefox or chrome??)
Please all remember, the collaboration model that internet and the web is bringing to us, does not always reward us with just money.
Many times you just throw a drop in the ocean, that immediately disappears. But probably, what you take every day will in the end be more than what you put in the beginning.
And remember your competitors.. Google offers free RSS aggregator, and there are many more out there..
just a few thoughts, hope not to disappoint you.
Bye,
Dave
October 16th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Sorry Dave, but you don’t get it. This has nothing to do with being or getting paid. However it has everything to do with respecting the rights of others. Not only my rights, but everyone’s rights.
Your assumption about my using many free services is quite correct. While I do make a financial contribution to some of those services, I sure don’t contribute to all of them - But that isn’t the point!
While I use many free services, I understand and accept that those free services very often fund themselves through advertising, and while I may not like their advertising, I take the good with the bad - I understand and accept that I do not have the right to “suck the marrow” out of those services. It’s a simple case of all (Including the advertising) or nothing.
There are also many free services that I refuse to use, because their advertising is over the top and irritating. So rather than attempting to cut the crap out of their service, I just don’t use it at all. It is also true that Google offer a free feed reading service - But how does Google cover their costs of providing that free service? Advertising! Of course the irony is: those who use that free service also feel they have the right to deny the service provider their right to recover their costs!
Something that the narrow mindedness of Firefox users seems to miss: they (many of them) think that this is all about me! If you read through all the posts and all of the replies, you should notice that it isn’t about me at all - Yes, it’s about my resignation from a project, but why do I no longer want to be involved? If you look at the original post, I wrote “Sage-Too follows the ad blocking philosophy, which I don’t agree with, and thus feel that I can no longer be part of the project.”
October 17th, 2009 at 12:07 am
@Dave - Here is a totally hypothetical situation for you to consider: -
Let’s for a moment consider the impact it might have if every single Internet user blocked Google ads. I’m sure it would have a devastating impact on Google and the free services they provide. I’m also sure that it would have a devastating impact on Mozilla - The very people who provide you with Firefox for free - As Mozilla derive much of their income from Google.
Of course selfish Firefox users don’t think further than the ends of their noses! They think they have a right to bite the hand that feeds them!
October 17th, 2009 at 3:00 am
I totally agree with you when you say that many users (not just firefox users), don’t perceive the value of what they take, and consider a right to ghet all that stuff free.
So the problem is educating people to understand the value of what they use, maybe there could be a banner in the application, that shows how many days of work it required to develop, how many user are using it, how much money has been collected from the users and how much money you think that you deserve for the work you and your team did.
I do not agree with you when you say “Ad blocking equals selfish user” or that advertising is the only way of doing things. I do block Ads, but i have donated money for many services i found useful in the past. I think that advertinsing is something that should not exist: human people spending their time to create something that irritates other people!
And furthermore the money spent by the user has to be split between: author of the service/software, Ads service delivery, Ads creators.
So, if i spend $100 you will probably get just $20, or less. No thanks, i prefer to give to someone $50 directly, with no money leakage of money in the transit and no irritating ads.
There is another assumption you did not think about. The one that advertisers make: “let’ s make believe the users that the products are free and then draw money frome them thru the ads”.
No thanks, i am not one of those users. I want to know what i buy, how much i spend and where my money goes.
And finally, what if ALL users would block ads? I believe that this will happen, before or later and i believe it will be a nice day.
So, i don’ t block ads because i am selfish, or because i want to bite the hand that feeds me. I do block ads because i want to disrupt this business model. It is so radicated that makes people like you think it is “the only way” to survive.
Do you believe there can be another business model?
October 17th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I’m certain that I’ve never said that advertising is the only way of doing things. However, if I, or anyone else, chooses to use advertising to derive income, then I do expect you, and everyone else, to respect that choice.
You say that you use ad blockers to disrupt the advertising business model. If you really wanted to disrupt the business model, you’d stop using the service altogether. For example, I see you use Gmail. So you are happy to take a free service from Google, yet at the same time you are happy to disrupt Google’s business model that pays for the very service you are consuming? You claim that blocking ads is not selfish? If you are correct about that, then it certainly is hypocritical. If you honestly wanted to disrupt the advertising business model, then stop using Gmail!
The day that advertising disappears altogether will indeed be a wonderful day, but I seriously doubt that will ever happen. In fact, with more and more people blocking ads, just the opposite is happening. Due to the fact that ads blocking disrupts the business model, advertisers react with even more advertising.
In a few replies to various comments I have said that blocking ads is about as worthless as filtering email for spam - neither does anything to solve the problem. In fact both actions only result in exacerbating the problem. I don’t use spam filtering, but I do spend many hours every week fighting spam, and if everyone had a less apathetic approach to spam, maybe the problem would actually go away. The same goes for advertising. If you come across an ad that offers something “for free,” only to discover that they are trying to sucker you into paying for something, then you should complain to whoever is displaying the ad. Simply blocking the ad is as apathetic as filtering spam - It does nothing to remove the threat of misleading advertising from other users, which in my book pretty much equals selfishness.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I’ve not visited the comments page here in a while, but after reading more of the responses to Mike’s choice to leave the project, I feel I can add a bit more.
For one thing, ad-based products are never pushed on the users if they choose not to download or use them. People tend to mix up wanting a specific product with the fact that they want the cake and to eat it too. If Sage-Too (which apparently has been removed from the add-ons page) is ad-supported, and you don’t like ads, then don’t use it. If we didn’t use these products that are using ad revenue to perpetuate their existence, they wouldn’t have an audience. For me it’s sort of like cable. Why would I pay $xx/month to watch television with ads? Sure, I can get more channels, but even with Tivo the commercials are very annoying. I don’t like getting pummeled with ads while I’m trying to watch a show.
Things were not always so. Ads are a new way that companies have found to generate revenue. I am a capitalist, and support the creative process that precedes the advent of new revenue streams for business, but ads are far too excessive these days. As a consumer, I retain my right to choose what I see or don’t see. Ads are tailored to circumvent that right by offering something that supposedly makes the ads worth it. I don’t think they ever are worth having a page that is 30-40% ads where you have to search for half a minute just to find the article you’re trying to read.
The point is that while you could berate Mike and others that have the attitude that ads are a viable source of revenue, the choice, at least for the time being, is still yours and mine. So if you don’t want ads, don’t use it. Or if you cheat and use ad-blockers, my question is, “what’s wrong with that?” Ads take advantage of the graphical nature of the web, so if an ad-blocker exists, why can’t we use it?
Charlie
November 18th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
@Charlie: It all boils down to a simple matter of rights and respect.
You have the right to surf whichever web pages you want to surf, while publishers of web pages have the right to control the content they publish. If a web page contained content you didn’t want to read, you wouldn’t visit it… Right? At the same time, the publisher of web pages have no right to force you to visit pages you don’t want to see… Right?
So, when you visit a page to view its content, you then should then respect the right of the publisher to display advertising along with that content. If you feel that the publisher is interfering with your ability to consume the content by displaying excessive advertising, stay away from the publishers site.
A funny thing that my many years (More years than the majority of its users have been alive) of messing on the Internet have taught me: people demand respect, yet seem unwilling to give respect. They demand that their rights not be violated, yet seem very willing to violate the rights of others.
Of course there is also the gimme-gimme-gimme factor. Thousands of people are willing to consume the spoils of advertising, while at the very same time blocking ads. I’d love to know how many people using ad-blockers also use gmail (As in Google mail). I’d love to know how many people using ad-blockers also use Google Reader. I wonder how many people using Google Chrome would love to have (If there isn’t already one) an ad blocking extension for it.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Mike,
I appreciate your position and enjoy speaking with you about this in civil terms. Many people just rant and rave without any coherent argument - they just get mad.
The one trump card here that I, the consumer, hold over companies that peruse ads in a prolific manner is that the choice of consumer is never obligatory. It is the sole responsibility of the service provider to market, sell, and support the products they advertise. I am in no way obliged to go one way or the other. That is the essence of capitalism - an ideal which many globalists believe is outdated an ineffective. I strongly disagree. Just because the Internet makes a way to do something has no bearing on the correctness or ethical imperative of the thing. I feel that the law and ethics are trailing far behind the advancement of the Internet (which is very inefficient in its current form, but that’s another discussion.)
I read in your comments that you compare the rights of the consumer to the rights of the company, which again, is comparing an organization to an individual. A juxtaposition that simply doesn’t fit.
Either way, I feel that the consumer is the driving force in any economy, and for a company or organization to say that ad-viewing is the responsibility of the consumer when the consumer is receiving ad-supported content is a little ambiguous. Who’s to say a company couldn’t identify all products as ad-supported? Where is the demarcation between a true purchased product and an ad-supported one?
Charlie
November 19th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Ranting is almost as mindless as those who fall prey to FUD and paranoia related to the “evils” of advertising
The very fact that your choice is not obligatory is exactly my point… Well, part of it. The very fact that you can choose to avoid sites with excessive advertising would naturally control the amount of advertising. Too much advertising. Traffic drops off. Publisher reduces amount of advertising. Traffic picks up. Ad-blockers totally mess up the natural “mechanics,” because the publisher sees the same amount of traffic, but ad revenue drops off. So he/she displays more ads.
Just as the consumer indirectly decides (in a capitalistic system) if a business succeeds or fails, let the consumer also decide the fate of web sites. Don’t artificially manipulate the success or failure with ad-blockers.
What makes you think I was only comparing companies with individuals? In my case, I am an individual. And even if we do compare individuals with companies, in exactly the same way as an individual has a right to earn a living, so too does a company have a right to cover its costs and make a profit.
I agree 100% that the consumer is the driving force of any economy, but I don’t think I ever used the term “ad-viewing.” I don’t particularly care if people view the ads or not, that isn’t the point. The point is, accept my advertising, or stay away from my site. Furthermore, I think you’ll find that in most cases (Specifically with regard to the Internet) individuals/companies who display ads are providing a free service, so where is the ambiguity?
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:30 am
Please update Sage to FF3.6!
January 24th, 2010 at 4:07 am
@oma: You’ve got to be joking!
January 24th, 2010 at 10:22 am
At least please post here link to latest released sage-too.
It’s just matter of few seconds to change text value to support firefox 3.6.
I do understeand risk (bugs, no supoort, etc……)
I just need sage too xpi.
January 24th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
@EMads: A few seconds of my time is more than the average Sage-Too user deserves.
January 24th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
@EMads: You can download the latest version of Sage-Too from here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/addons/7263/
However it won’t work correctly under Fx3.6 with simple version hack. You’ll have to replace treeView.js and add some tweaks into other files.
OK, I’ve released Fx3.6 compatible Sage++ on my site that may become a alternative. But of course no support, and it’s going to be abandoned too. You shouldn’t use it if you need a future.
January 26th, 2010 at 3:01 am
@Higmmer, you are right - it doesn’t work
But your Sage ++ is working - thank you very much finally I can have the best RSS reader in the world back.
(BTW opml import doesn’t work but I can live without that : )
February 20th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Hi Mike,
Many thanks for Sage-Too. I enjoyed it while it was available. Best of luck to you going forward.
March 7th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Currently using Sage-Too w/3.5.7. Just dropping in to say thanks for the work you’ve done in the past for it…absolutely the best reader to track rss in firefox.
March 26th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Hi Mike,
Thanks for all your work. I liked and like your feedreader very much!
I still use it and it works fine for me in Ubuntu 9.10 Firefox 3.5.8.
I ‘m coming from a country with 16 million soccer coaches who know always better. But there is only one who decides what happens in his team…
There is only one who decides what happens with software, this is the developers team. There is no democracy in software development!
Good luck!
March 27th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Sorry, old thread, but i’m high on chocolate… can’t be held responsible.
What do you think about the rights of advertisers not to have ad impressions artificially inflated? Isn’t it fair to say that those who normally use adblockers but turn them off for a site out of respect for it’s business model are effectively joining with the site to deceive the advertisers into thinking that they got X impressions when in fact those extra impressions were worthless?
It could be argued (perhaps feebly) that advertisers don’t want to pay to have ads displayed to adblocker types anyway (i say “perhaps feebly” because adblockers constitute a pretty large demographic that no doubt advertisers want to reach, but users that oblige and say “OK, i’ll turn it off for your site” probably aren’t going to look at the ads at all, and are probably very close to valueless to the marketer… you’re not allowed to say “help me out! click on the ads!” on your page, so why is “help me out! turn off the adblocker!” OK?). So the devil’s advocate says: what about marketers’ rights and respect?
Advertisers aren’t usually paying for click-through-and-purchase, of course, they’re paying for a tiny slice of brainwashing, and that counts whether the person is an adblocker type or not, and the attitude of “hey, marketers know what they’re paying for when they buy ads, so buyer beware” is fair enough. Likewise the attitude of “hey, if a user doesn’t want to see ads, go elsewhere for your plugins” is totally fair enough. But why not: “hey, if a plugin developer has trouble with the way people use/manipulate the HTML they download from his/her server, they can do something else with their time instead of developing FOSS plugins” is fair enough. I suppose that’s just what you’ve done, so… fair enough. But i think some people are reacting negatively because your attitude didn’t seem like “well, this isn’t working for me so i’m moving on” so much as “users are selfish”.
Unlike Charlie, i am not a capitalist :-), but from that perspective, it’s the job of the producer of a product to offer something of value to people in a way that elicits their payment (speaking practically, here, not morally). Effectively, if you want to “sell” a product the “payment” for which is too easy to circumvent by users that are either clueless or careless or greedy, it demonstrates only that a human desire for a product the “stealing” of which is perceptively “victimless” can outweigh any guilt they may have… I think the allegation of “selfishness” is maybe a bit harsh, and maybe would fall more along the fuzzy lines of “human nature”, which is kinda what Charlie was getting at, I think (”it’s IT”). It’s one of those moral quandaries where a culmination of many tiny ethical transgressions amounts to a single large burden borne by a small group (or sometimes by the entire herd, when the developer in turn walks away).
I also wonder how many of the adblockers that came to a site have any kind of analysis or awareness of this issue at all — i have never seen an entry page saying “ye shall not pass, adblockers”… or really any education about the issue on a site. (Only, “help me out, click on the ads”, which seems at least as dishonest/greedy as adblocking, but that’s a different subject).
Absent any copy to the contrary, i suspect most users get the impression that a developer would rather have their software downloaded than ignored, and that the developer will take what “donations” they get through ad-selling as icing on the cake… after all, if they wanted to “sell” their product, they’d copyright and sell it, they wouldn’t open-source it. “Free” is “free”, right? Am i buying it through ad-viewing or am i free to take it? If a product is free and open source, should i be expected to pay for the developer’s time and effort? (After all, when i buy a closed source product, i’m paying for more than just access to the intellectual property, right?) Should each FOSS developer have the right to decide if they want to charge for their time and effort? If they do, is it incumbent on them to tell the world that their ad-viewing-support is a “strongly-suggested fee” for that work, rather than a voluntary donation? Rhetorical questions. Just suggesting that it’s muddy waters and the average totally-hapless user might deserve some compassion/education.
We can bemoan the myriad ways that the human population dooms itself (and the planet) through tiny immoral actions that culminate in giant disasters, but it seems wiser to develop systems that assume that behavior and work with it, rather than against (where my capitalists at!?), and we can do the harder work of changing that pesky human nature in the meantime.
In other words, ad-based FOSS is a tough gig, especially given the ugly particulars of current advertising and web tech, and it’s hard to blame users — without qualification, anyway — for rejecting it, even as they exploit someone else for the meager convenience of less-cluttered web pages.
As for general disrespect and poor communication skills on the part of users demanding things and expecting the world, i’m with you.
March 28th, 2010 at 12:31 am
How can turning off your ad blockers for a particular site ever be considered deceptive? That is just ridiculous!
Many marketing types are looking for brand name saturation, and thus don’t care about clicks. All they want is for someone to see their logo.
Most web servers count hits, but they don’t distinguish between those blocking ads and those that aren’t. If a marketer interested in buying ad space on my sites asks for stats, I can give him the hits recorded by the web server - which doesn’t give him any idea of how many people are blocking ads. If he then, based on the stats I have provided, buys ad space, he is very likely not to realize the exposure he was expecting. THAT is deceptive, but I honestly can’t provide him with more accurate stats.
“Selfishness,” as far as I’m concerned, is defined as a lack of thought for others. I have simply distilled out the one part of “human nature” that I feel has the most impact on this particular problem. Of course there is also that part of “Internet humanity” that fail to think at all. Unthinkingly, they fall prey to the “advertising is bad” hype, pushed down their throats by those looking to take advantage of their thoughtless nature. They install an ad blocker, and without even fully realizing what they are doing, block every ad on the Internet. A good example of this is a user that whined about not being able to view the online help for Wizz RSS (I block the help content for those who are blocking ads). I told him to turn off his ad blocker for the online help. He insisted that he didn’t have an ad blocker installed. When we went through his list of installed add-ons, and found Adblock Plus, his response was, “Oh! Is that an ad blocker?”
Most people (Including you it seems) read this thread only thinking about free software. The problem, of course, goes MUCH further than that. We are already seeing a number of online services, who were once providing their service free of charge, now being forced to charge. I assume that many service providers are now being forced to charge because their “free model,” funded by advertising revenue, is being undermined. So, at the end of the day, because of the selfish, we all lose.
No matter how we try to rationalize the problem, at the end of the day it all boils down to simple matter of respect. That pesky human nature seems to demand respect, yet, at the very same time, is unwilling to give the very same respect that it demands. I, and everyone else, has the right to display ads, without having to justify our actions to anyone at all. If you are unwilling to respect my right, then stay away from my content… Simple.
March 28th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Turning off an adblocker for a particular site couldn’t be considered deceptive, i agree. Urging others to turn them off for your site to give the advertiser the impression that people are receptive to their advertising could be. I think it all depends on what your site’s demographic is, how the arrangement between the two parties is reached, who’s advertising, and what their goals are (i.e. do they really just want someone to see their logo? Some might, especially corporations advertising nationally… others may want to know that they are reaching a relatively receptive audience). If i’m a marketer i don’t want to reach less people than i expected (due to adblocking), but when i do reach them i want to reach “real” people (if in i fact i seek more than a simple logo impression). But all this is mostly beside the point, so i withdraw the issue.
(As a semi-irrelevant aside, re: stats for the marketer; why couldn’t you provide them with the percentage that are blocking ads, so they know what they’re buying?)
Agreed: that “advertising is evil and everything should be free and i’m doing you a favor by using your software” dogma is childish.
And agreed: that selfishness or rationalization or cluelessness has made the ad-supported business model very tough. I’m a musician, hoping to make a profession of it, and the current “free” climate has done no favors to my business models, either. But: we can point out the tragedy of selfishness, but if the model doesn’t work, the model doesn’t work (because users find ads so odious, or because users are just that selfish), and in finding alternatives let’s at least be a little understanding with our users… i just think it’s too easy to take a morally unambiguous position when the issue isn’t so clear. This process of finding a business model is a collaborative process, after all.
I could agree with your assertion that it all comes down to respect if i thought the average adblocking visitor had even entered into the analysis, and if the plugin developer had something like your last paragraph posted prominently on their site. Absent those two things, i see gray areas (note: not total innocence on the part of the user, just gray areas…)
I don’t believe you have a right to display unblocked ads, per se. I believe you have a right to be respected, and a right to be treated honestly, and a right to set the terms for the use of your product. If, in coming to your site, it was unambiguously incumbent on me to view what content you had presented there, because of some clearly-stated intention on your part to make income via a certain business model, and if it was fair to assume that i understood that arrangement and understood the ramifications of adblocking, then i would agree that blocking the ads was unambiguously disrespectful, selfish, a violation of the trust of our interaction, etc.
But there are so many websites presenting ads with so many different arrangements and variations on the ad-supported business model that it seems unfair to me to paint a majority of the userbase with a one-color “selfish” brush just because they do what at the next website might be “no big deal”, maybe even encouraged. Maybe i’m behind the times… maybe i’m overstating this… maybe every website showing ads feels the same way you do, and it’s totally fair to be upset with users that have been chastised many times about it and continue in their selfish ways, and somehow i’ve just missed the memo… but on my internet this kind of group understanding is still in wild flux.
Someone has to pay the bills at every website, and no website puts ads on their page just for the fun of it, it’s true: we as visitors can assume that they are trying to make money, and if they are a solo-developer then we can further assume that they strongly deserve (and maybe need) the income. Yet it’s not the case that every ad-supported website doesn’t want adblocking visitors to solicit them, and it’s a stretch to demand that visitors always do the research, especially when the answers are often obfuscated anyway. Given all this ambiguity, users may be understandably confused about what the moral choice may be, or, more likely, give up worrying about it altogether.
In other words, adblocking is inherently selfish, or at least self-centered, in that you are always converting someone else’s ideal page presentation into your preferred form in such a way that will make them less money, but it’s not always clear what the page presenter requires or expects in exchange for your attention to their site. Maybe the website will take their ad money when they can get it, with no hard feelings to adblockers, but they expect an explicit donation if you dig their product, etc etc etc.
It’s a dynamic cultural thing: expectations, assumptions, traditions… the internet certainly facilitates dehumanized selfishness; i’m just pleading for a little ethical wiggle room. Users want to take take take, and developers/service providers aren’t asking for much in return, but if they define “respect” as sternly as you do, maybe they should be a little clearer about their expectations and the personal ramifications of not meeting those expectations?
March 29th, 2010 at 12:33 am
I’d actually like to see people turn their ad-blockers off for the entire Internet, rather than selected sites. I’ve never used an ad-blocker, and I’ve never picked up any virus, Trojan or other piece of malware from ads I have clicked. Thus, I have to assume that reasons put forward for ad-blocking are mostly bullshit, attempting to justify peoples selfishness.
I didn’t say that it was impossible to collect stats on the number of people blocking ads. The mechanisms built into most web servers for the collection of stats work on the server-side, while ad-blocking works on the client-side. This means that it would require the development of additional code to collect these stats… Even more work, simply to collect stats on the selfish… Hmmmmm…
The ambiguity you speak off probably stems from the fact that many web sites value traffic more than they value income derived from advertising. I’m pretty sure that most web publishers would like to see ad-blocking made illegal (Assuming that were possible), but they say nothing for fear of losing their traffic. So it’s easy for the selfish to jump to the conclusion that because a particular publisher doesn’t say anything, they also don’t care that their content is altered.
I guess it’s a bit difficult to draw an accurate parallel between publishing web content and being a musician, but, as a musician, how would you feel if I took one of your songs, altered it without your permission, and then made my altered version available for people to download?
Another mistake that many people make (Including you it seems) is that people display ads to make money. That certainly isn’t true in my case. I display ads only in an attempt to cover the cost I bear of providing a free service.
I guess the Nazis also asked for a little ethical wiggle room while planing the holocaust? Yes, a bit of an unfair comparison, but when one starts asking for wiggle room, where does it end?
March 29th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Ouch, holocaust analogy. To me, fascism is the antithesis of wiggle room, an ultimate in hardline “morality” (or amorality, a fine line…). My history is pretty bad, but i don’t remember the Nazis asking for much of anything from anyone (until afterwards, anyway). But to address what i guess is your basic point — that moral relativism is a slippery slope — i’ll heartily agree with that, and will assert that the slope of moral clarity is equally slippery.
I agree that the virus angle is a red herring. To me it is an issue of the visitor manipulating their experience at some nebulous cost to the website. Whether or not the magnitude of that infraction qualifies as a straight-up immoral, “selfish” act, no qualifications, or whether it falls into the gray areas that we as humans constantly negotiate, i maintain is a tougher call than you’ve implied (i lean to the latter, as i’ve stated). I guess that’s our basic disagreement, and it’s probably not something we will reason out of each other one way or the other.
Re: music, yeah the parallel is pretty hard to draw. Not that my particular method proves anything in this debate, but: i offer my music freely (including physical CDs) under a creative commons license, so i’d actually be stoked if someone messed with it and offered it for download (provided they respected my terms — that it stay as a CC license.) I take donations as a separate channel. This works for me, and i make more per CD than my colleagues because my listeners are reminded (by me, note) that they are contributing to the cause of me making music, not buying a product. They feel good, i feel good. But the model isn’t for everyone, i acknowledge that. And if they took my music, modified it, took out a copyright on it, and used it to sell hamburgers for their own profit, and then emailed me and demanded that i change the chord progression in the bridge and get a new version available for download on the double, i’d be bummed (especially because i clearly explain the deal on my website, and i, like everyone, hope for respect.) Generally, i’d be bummed if everyone assumed that they could download any music for free whenever and wherever and do whatever with it, but i can nevertheless acknowledge that the world of online music is chaotic and ethically confusing enough that someone might do something technically “selfish” and yet not deserve the label of being a “selfish person”.
I’ve produced shows for songwriters who are totally small-time (almost as small as me), selling home-made CDs out of their backpack. Someone comes to the show and loves it. A week later that person asks me to burn a copy of the artist’s CD for them. I could call them selfish, but instead i say “aw man, i wouldn’t feel good about that, they sell that CD at shows, they’re tying to make a living” and >95% of the time the friend says “oh, gosh, yes of course you’re right, i’ll buy the download online”, and so the awareness has slowly grown that if you’re going to burn someone’s CD you’d better hit them up the next time they come through town (or buy the download instead, etc). None of this applies to the online community, of course, which is a different animal, and has more, or less, capability for such enlightenment, depending on who you ask.
Do you think it’s too much to expect developers to have explanatory copy on their site (as Wizz does, and some others certainly do)?: “This volunteer project (or website, or whatever) survives off of advertising — i can not cover the significant related costs without this income. I am making no profit. Please respect me and my efforts by disabling your adblocking for this site. If you can not offer this small token of appreciation, please find an alternative solution to your needs”. No, i’m not sure it would really work in the long term either. I’m not all that confident in the ad-supported model to begin with: it’s almost like someone designed a system (or trap?) to prove that humans don’t always perfectly negotiate moral questions (if i put ads in my songs i’d be unsurprised if people edited them out… i’d do the same…), but it might work, and at least it would help with general consciousness of the issue. Until explanatory copy like that is the norm i can’t get too mad at users (ditto people that copy CDs — too many musicians are mute on the subject. We all could be more forthcoming in how we hope our business models will work.)
(another stat-related aside: can’t you just divide the number of impressions you get from an ad on the main page by the number of hits to that page and infer that it reflects the proportion of non-adblockers? maybe i’m missing something…)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
March 30th, 2010 at 12:15 am
Yes, I agree that the holocaust analogy was low, but at least it got my point across. I live in a country where moral and ethical “wiggle room” resulted in what is known today as “apartheid.” I was lucky enough to have been born on the right side of the apartheid divide, but through marriage, came to experience a very small part of the wrong side of the apartheid divide. I have seen way too often how wiggle room, at first a small crack, eventually becomes a gaping chasm of unfounded justification for something that is wrong.
In “normal” life, when any kind of signage is absent, most people automatically assume that the law still prevails. On the Internet however, just the opposite seems to apply. Do you need to walk down the street wearing a sign saying, “I’m human! Respect me!” Oh dude! Sorry that I spat on you, but it’s your own fault because you weren’t wearing your sign!
So yes, I do think it’s too much to expect that anyone should first have to explain their circumstances before receiving respect from someone else. We are all human (more-or-less). We all have the same needs (more-or-less). We all have families that we need to provide for. We all need to work for a living. We all know how it feels to have expenses that exceed our income. Why should I need to explain any of that at all?
However, having said that, I do still provide a notice to ad-blockers and it reads: - Ad revenue helps cover the cost of providing YOU, and many other people, with a FREE service. If you’d like to make a donation towards covering those costs, please click the link below: -
Of course the myopic nature of the selfish mind automatically filters out the notice, in the same way it seems to filter out the need to treat other people with respect - when connected to the Internet. Oh dude! Sorry that I spat on you, but it’s your own fault because you weren’t wearing your sign! Oh! Silly me! You are wearing a sign! Oh, but this is the Internet and normal rules don’t apply. So it’s still your fault!
March 30th, 2010 at 2:47 am
And i live in a country where moral clarity has reaped similar evils (the US). Two sides of the same coin, really: a lack of empathy.
You shouldn’t have to wear that sign, walking down the street, but unlike the internet the street wasn’t invented just a short generation ago, with the bulk of its form shaped even more recently than that. This is my answer to “why should i have to explain any of that” — because you’re trying to make a living in an entirely new context — one that does an especially good job of magnifying the worst of human nature — and the culture needs your help to evolve. I mean, you’ve already done your time, don’t get me wrong, i’m just thinking your scorn could be better placed.
March 30th, 2010 at 4:54 am
I’m pretty sure that during the existence of human beings on this Earth there have been many momentous inventions, most of which can probably be considered even more momentous than the Internet. So did mankind have to redefine respect when it invented the wheel? I think not.
The problem with the Internet is that because there is no face-to-face contact, people think they are dealing with a computer rather than with another human being, or is this simply another excuse?
I think my scorn for “Internetkind” is very well placed. I’m also sure that, in exactly the same way as with any other human interaction, a little more thought and respect for our fellow human beings will go a very long way towards making the Internet a better place for all of us.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Yeah, human morality, such as it is, evolved in the context of small, local groupings of people, and all the momentous inventions/changes of history have indeed presented challenges to that morality, most of which i’d say have not yet been met — in other words, yes, we have had to redefine respect (along with a lot of other concepts), many times over, and we’re still redefining it (thank god, because it’s certainly not fully formed). I’m not sure when and where we stop making excuses for people’s behavior, i.e. how long until we say “this fundamental change in relations has been around long enough, and you should know better”, but the internet is very young; i’m just saying it benefits all of us to try to help that part of our culture grow up. Of course, anyone will eventually get burned-out and cynical when their job involves dealing with the butt end of human nature.
Anyway, thanks for being willing to discuss, and best of luck with your endeavors.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:06 am
Tomorrow (1 April) it’ll be 17 years since I 1st connected to the Internet. 17 Years ago the Internet was quite a nice place. While the technology driving the Internet has evolved, those using it certainly seem to have devolved.
March 31st, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Happy anniversary.
Devolution: can’t argue. However, in ‘93 the internet was well under 16 million users, now pushing 2 billion… that’s a sobering influx. Most historic graphs of the internet don’t even show data before ‘95. It’s still a very, very new and somewhat mysterious thing for the vast bulk of the users — we now have the first generation of kids that grew up with it coming into adulthood. It’s no longer a cool underground phenomenon with eager and contributory over-educated geeks, it’s a giant pool of semi-tech-clueless humanity. It’s not simply “making excuses” to exercise a little understanding — it’s acknowledging that the state of internet culture is a rather chaotic mess.
Another imprecise and probably misguided analogy: if someone takes a call on a cell phone at a social gathering, and i take umbrage at the decay of the social fiber, am i a puritanical Luddite or a defender of righteous morality? Maybe i “always postpone 100% of my cell calls, even if my doctor is calling, because it’s simply rude, no excuses”, but it’s irrelevant: the rapidly shifting sands of human exchange result in cultural friction. Internet issues are similar. Put a sign on that wall that says “don’t take cell calls in here”, and i’ll stand beside you and decry the disrespect when the sign is inevitably ignored.
April 7th, 2010 at 2:15 am
And so it begins (Or escalates). The selfish will eventually kill the goose that lays their golden eggs: - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/07/rupert-murdoch-google-paywalls-ipad
April 25th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Hi Mike,
Firstly thanks for the awesome add-on which I have been using for years now !
I managed to get it running this far, by just changing the maxversion in install.rdf
But with firefox 3.6, it was broken and not usable. Since I cannot live without your addon, I tried to fix it and got it running in firefox 3.6.3 !
I am sure there are lots of fans out there for your addon who will need it.. With your permission, can I share this ? If yes, can I submit a fix for your addon in mozilla addons site?
I am totally a newbie, this is first time I am trying something with firefox addons, would appreciate your help.
Thanks in advance
April 25th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
@thebrainybug: As far as I’m concerned, you are welcome to do anything you please with the code.
May 26th, 2010 at 7:04 am
You convinced me. I’m uninstalling my antivirus now. Not allowing the porn sites I frequent to install helpware on my system is just as selfish as using condoms.
May 26th, 2010 at 7:19 am
@oggo: You’ve convinced me. You’re about as stupid as the rest of your ilk.
July 9th, 2010 at 4:43 am
Higmmer Says (on 2010-01-24):
That is the saddest news!!! Higmmer, I hope you will reconsider. Could you please at least update Sage++ to work with Firefox 4? I’m hoping Mozilla will keep the Bookmarks system more stable after that, so that Sage++ would hopefully work for a long time without the need for another update.
BTW: I’ve just filed a new bug that request that Sage be made a permanent part of Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=577644
July 9th, 2010 at 4:51 am
BTW: Higmmer, THANK YOU for Sage++ !!! Sage is the most important feature in Firefox for me (not just the most important ad-on!) (I read a lot of news blogs).
Sage++: http://himag.blog26.fc2.com/blog-entry-234.html?lang=en
BTW: I am unable to contact you via the contact form on your website. The OK/Send button doesn’t seem to work (using Firefox, non-Japanese).
PS. Mike: Apologies for bringing this up on your blog. Can I pay you for the extra traffic or any aggravation?
July 9th, 2010 at 4:56 am
Higmmer Says (on 2010-01-24):
Can you/anyone recommend a similar alternative? What feed reader do you use?
July 9th, 2010 at 5:09 am
@Peter: I don’t mind.
July 9th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Thanks Mike!
It seems the original Sage isn’t dead:
http://code.google.com/p/sage/
http://code.google.com/p/sage/issues/list
July 10th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Mike: It seems that it is possible to incorporate ads in Sage-Too. So your reason that Sage bypasses ads might not be the case.
http://picasaweb.google.com/PeterLairo/Miscellaneous#5492299708464201650
Perhaps this will convince you to continue developing Sage-Too.
July 10th, 2010 at 9:39 am
BTW: The screenshot above of the feed with ads was from “The Huffington Post | Full News Feed“:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/
http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/huffingtonpost/LatestNews
July 10th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Peter, after five years of putting up with the bureaucratic attitude of little boys, who, quite honestly, would do a lot better working for a government department than Mozilla, it would require something of biblical proportions to get me to continue developing Sage-Too.