Dr. Dobb's Journal May 2002
No sooner did I wrap up and send off this month's "Programming Paradigms" column than events transpired that cast part of its message in a somewhat different light. In that column (see page 69), I praised the tech-oriented site Slashdot for its openness and its embrace of no-cost software. Whereupon Slashdot's head honcho, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, announced that Slashdot would be moving to a pay-for-content model. Or rather, a pay-if-you-want-to-avoid-a-lot-of-annoying-ads model. For some, this is an announcement with a Richter value just below that of Darth Vader's "I'm your father, Luke."
If I were in a prognosticating mood, I'd predict unmitigated disaster. For one thing, I think that the Slashdot crew gets cut a lot of slack because Slashdot is free; when you pay for something, you expect a certain level of professionalism — a level that Slashdot content frankly doesn't attain. Second, Slashdot acquires its content for free from its readers, and the culling of that content is also supplied by the readers — so why should they pay for the product of their own efforts? Third, quality of product and perceived cost of acquiring it aside, any time you move from a free model to a pay model, you can expect to lose a lot of followers, and the politics of Slashdot's audience suggest that Rob should be prepared to lose a whole lot — possibly enough that the pay model really doesn't pay. Fourth, the pay model doesn't pay; why does Slashdot think that it can succeed where so many have failed?
I realize that the four points I just raised are all contentious — Slashdot supporters could counter them with cogent arguments about the quality of the Slashdot experience or the value of the dialog Slashdot empowers or with examples of successful e-content businesses. Nevertheless, I think that the perception will be as I have described, and I predict that the consequences for Slashdot will be dire. Slashdot will be seen as going over to the dark side, other sites will cannibalize its readers, the sense of community will crumble, and even if Slashdot backs off from the policy in a few months, the damage will be done.
Or rather, that's what I'd say if I were in a prognosticating mood. But since I was completely blindsided by Slashdot's leap into paid content, I am loath to make any predictions. I can only eat so many words per month.
When sentenced thus to a diet of words, it can be comforting to turn to a man of God — like, say, octogenarian evangelist Billy Graham. Poor Billy. At an age when one has to be so careful about one's diet, he has his own bitter words to force down. Some of the things he has said — "A lot of Jews are great friends of mine...[b]ut they don't know how I really feel about what they're doing to this country, and I have no power and no way to handle them...but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something..." floated to the surface of the general slime in recently released Nixon tapes — would make a strong man gag.
I must say I was shocked by the revelation of Graham's antisemitism — as shocked as I was when courts around the country started feeding some of psychic Miss Cleo's words back to her. I thought that being a psychic meant never having to say "I'm wrong." What kind of a world would it be if psychics, evangelists, politicians, and PR flacks were forced to eat their injudicious words? On the other hand, Miss Cleo (or rather Steven Feder and Peter Stolz, the brains, if you'll pardon the expression, behind Miss C) didn't get busted for bilking the gullible out of their nest eggs with patently fraudulent claims of magical powers. The legal issue on which they got snagged was overcharging for bilking the gullible et cetera. (That may not be the precise legalese.)
The injudicious words that programmers use, however, always come back to bite them. And some quite judicious words even get readjudicated in a later trial. Who knew in 1956 that "goto" would be considered harmful? And now, according to Jonathan Amsterdam (http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=7027/ddj0204a/0204a.htm), Java's new is part of the axis of evil constructs. That's a bitter pill. But at least it's a little one. It'll go down easily.
Michael Swaine
editor-at-large
mike@swaine.com