Payhub, meet paywall....
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 3:47 PM, igrigorik <[email protected]> wrote: > Julien, since I was one of those people objecting to this model.. Let > me clarify my point: > > There is certainly a need for protected RSS feeds: password protected, > obfuscated URL's, etc. For those, the publisher is maintaining an ACL > for who should and/or should not access those feeds. But, if the > publisher makes all of their feeds publicly available individually, > then it seems to me that a missing firehose feed is simply a technical > hurdle. > > Take Buzz as an example.. At PostRank we had the "firehose" even prior > to the "real firehose" by actively crawling Google's sitemap (public), > identifying users with Buzz feeds, and subscribing to their individual > PSHB feeds. It was painful, and not very efficient, but it worked and > did not violate any TOS. In effect, it was an artificial barrier - > granted, there may be a reason why you might want to make it hard to > get at this data, but the point is, outsiders are still able to do it. > > In the case of Posterous, same logic applies. I could run a crawler, > go gather all the RSS feeds, and call it a day. I'm not violating any > TOS, as much as I'm jumping over a technical barrier. If anything, > this is flawed thinking on the part of the distributor of those RSS > feeds. > > As far as pricing goes. I'm not the one to decide on your business > model, but as a developer/user I do think that double-charging (both > the provider, and the consumer) is counter-productive. Most publishers > have the problem of _nobody giving a damn_ about their content, and > not the other way around (certainly something we see a lot of at > PostRank). Hence, lowering the barriers to distribution for those > publishers is one of the key ways they can address this. That's why > RSS feeds are so valuable in the first place. Most publishers have > realized at this point that full-content RSS feeds are the way to go - > as in, give it away, give it away for free, and if they like it, > they'll come for more. Hail mary? Perhaps. But that's how the world > works in the age of content abundance. > > So, my point is: charge the publisher for the PSHB hub. You're > providing a service, you can charge them based on amount of people > consuming their content (in other words, align yourself with their > success metric). But, for "Joe the developer".. I'm not paying to > access a push RSS feed when I can get that RSS feed for free by > walking around your fake fence - it's silly. Yes, I get it, it's more > efficient, but still. > > What bothers me is that every hub you lock in at superfeedr, is a hub > I can't access for free. In reverse, this is why I am so excited about > Google's PSHB hub - they get it. Publishers want distribution, they're > aligning themselves with the publishers. > > ig > > > On Nov 17, 6:13 pm, Julien Genestoux <[email protected]> > wrote: >> Hello everybody, >> >> Today, twice I've had talks with people who assumed that by default all the >> data available via PubSubHubbub was expected to be free and accessible by >> any one for any purpose. >> I think this is a 'wrong' idea and it doesn't serve us very well, so I wrote >> a blog post about it :http://blog.superfeedr.com/not-a-license/ >> >> I think it's awesome that so many services, like Buzz grant an almost >> unlimited and full access to all their data, but I think we (and maybe >> anyone advocating) should make sure that we do not give the idea that by >> implementing PubSubHubbub people give away their data and any rights around >> it. >> >> Any feedback is much appreciated! Has anyone bumped into the same >> mis-understanding? or worse, had them? >> >> Julien
