From: raisch@Control.COM (Robert Raisch)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: PRODIGY - Speed, Cost, Usefulness, etc.
Keywords: prodigy macintosh
Date: 27 Aug 92 23:44:37 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Control Technology Corp., Hopkinton MA

AH HA!  Someone with whom to argu....errrrr, discuss this issue.  (Yah! That's
the ticket. ;)

drake@drake.almaden.ibm.com (Sam Drake) writes:
>In article <2481@cthulhuControl.COM> raisch@Control.COM (Robert Raisch) writes:
>>bond@rtsg.mot.com (Allan Bond) writes:
>>
>>>** Is there any way to customize the service from my end to reduce the
>>>   amount of useless advertisements & graphics being dumped to my screen?
>>	PRODIGY sells a PRODUCT to a CUSTOMER
>>	The PRODUCT is *you*, the user.
>>	The CUSTOMER is the advertiser who wants to innundate you with
>>	it's own product, USELESS MARKET-BLATHER.
>>[etc]

>Seems to me that Robert Raisch's analysis of Prodigy's goals, while 
>agressively worded, is somewhat accurate.  Prodigy sells advertising;
>advertisers pay rates based on how many people view it.  If you could
>ask Prodigy not to send you the ads, advertisers would pay Prodigy less.
>Therefore Prodigy doesn't offer a "turn off the ads, please" switch
>for you to throw.

Agressive?  You ain't seen me when I'm agressive.  <sharpening claws>
This is mild.  <evil chuckle>  Msr. Drake continues....

>BUT, two other points should be made:

>1.  Robert's analysis is as true for Prodigy as it is for ANY advertising-based
>    activity.  I wonder is he is as morally outraged by advertising in other
>    forms?  Does Robert recommend the abolition of TV, radio, newspapers,
>    and magazines, too?  (That darned Scientific American, they won't sell you
>    a copy without the ads.  How arrogant of them.  Start a boycott.  ???)

Ahhhhhh!  <eyes brighten>  But there is a *significant* difference between
an 'information service' and the 'print/broadcast media' which is the source
of the 'moral outrage' you seems to have sensed in my posting.

The print and broadcast media are single producer, multiple consumer services.

The television station/network or the publisher/editors of the magazine are 
the ones who dictate the content of their various offerings, and hopefully
these empowered decision makers have their fingers on the pulse of their
audience.  If they miss, they do not have a PRODUCT to sell to their 
CUSTOMER as shown by publication demographics or by the television ratings
companies.

But, an information service which draws on it constituency for the content of
the information is in an altogether different ball-o-wax.

Information Services are multiple producer, multiple consumer services where
the user adds value to the service simply by using it.

The moment that I add my comments to a conversation, I am adding value.

The very fact that you are reading this reply says that I have touched some
chord in you, the reader.  Either you agree with me, or you disagree.
Or perhaps you just want to see what the hell I have the gall to say next.

Either way, you are receiving some value from this message.  I have captured
your attention for a few scant moments, and I have given you some respite from
your work or play.  (Just ignore my hand reaching out to pick your pocket 
while I have you trapped in my electronic gaze. ;) 

And if I am *very* lucky, I get you to think.  And this is the beginning of 
real value.  (We who play in these fields do so blindly.  We are hammering 
on the trigger of a nuclear bomb, blissfully unaware at the raw power at our 
beck and call.)

In the next generation of Computer Mediated Information Services, my 
participation in this discussion would be rewarded, via a simple mechanism
which would debit a tiny fraction of money from those of you what are still
reading this rant, and crediting this paltry sum to my account.  (Them 
millicents might actually amount to real money, if I am clever or entertaining
enough.)

Simply stated, P* fails to see the value of it's own users participation.

If P* recognized this simple fact, it would not be a difficult thing to get
them to add value to their service.  It would not be difficult to get P* to
support Internet mail.  They would do so, gladly;  Simply because it would
improve the value of the service they provide.


>2.  The revenue that Prodigy takes in from advertisers helps pay for the
>    service.  Specifically, it's what allows Prodigy to be flat-rate,
>    with no connect time charges.  Consider ... on most online services
>    if you connect for a long time, you cost them more money ... so they
>    charge you more money.  On Prodigy, the longer you connect, the more
>    ads they show you, and the more revenue you bring to Prodigy.  This
>    extra revenue offsets the cost of you signing on, so they can afford
>    to let you on with no connect charges.

*HELPS* pay?  <chuckle>  The amount of money that P* generates is astronomical
and still they post a loss each quarter.  Where does the money go, I wonder?  

I abhor poor management.  False advertising disgusts me.  Companies solely in 
it for the buk$ makes me physically ill.  

Don't get me wrong!  It's certainly alright to make a living.  Hell, I'm as 
much a capitalist as the next engineer down the hall with a mortgage and a 
new car.

But it is not *alright* to promote a service which purports to be one thing
with it's own set of assumptions, and then offer something TOTALLY different.

It is not *alright* to allow a company to prey on the poor ill-informed sobs
who make up the majority of this country, and it's not *alright* to present
a false impression of value whilst picking the pockets of your users.

And it is certainly not *alright* to support a company who has so badly 
misplaced it's moral center.

(Sure, it's an agressive view, but then again, I won't send my money to
 DeBeers in South Africa or to Exxon in the North Sea, for *very* similar
 reasons.  I believe that enslaving our neighbors and polluting our nest is 
 just as abhorrent as taking grotesque advantage of the ignorance of others.)

>Some folks would rather pay connect charges than see ads.  That's OK.
>But for others, it's a reasonable tradeoff.  Me, I can ignore ads,
>but just wouldn't pay connect charges to use a service.  So for me,
>Prodigy's rate structure ... enabled by its ad revenue ... makes it
>a good choice.

Then stick with it, while some of us attempt to marshall the resources of 
the network, and develop the future of human communications.  We'll let
you play with our toys too.  

		</rr>

(P.S.  You, kind reader, will notice that I have not mentioned P* censoring
 it's content even once in this entire message.  That is another kettle of
 fish entirely.  And Boy, does it stink.  I'd break a few news agents by the
 flood of bile I could share with you on *that* subject.  <grin>)


>Sam Drake / IBM Almaden Research Center 
>Internet:  drake@almaden.ibm.com    BITNET:  DRAKE at ALMADEN
-- 
"Nobody knows the tourbles I've seen." ...And I'm not even wearing any trousers.