oppositeoffaith asks: RE: Reblog of the Wired Mock up/Microsoft ahead of the curve...I like. It's an interesting time-people have to be made aware of the damage the "Freemium" has done. The worst is that it has HIDDEN the cost-nothing is ever free...would love to see more on this...!
» SFB says: I don’t think “freemium” is totally a damaging prospect on its face, or necessarily the same thing in this case — in the case of magazines, they sell their subscriber lists, so this is just an extension of that. But I’m definitely with you — we’ve given up a lot of our privacy with some of these ad models, and we should think really hard about that as a culture. The fact that IE10’s implementation of “Do Not Track” is so controversial for some is a sign of how out of whack these priorities have gotten. Either way, this is the kind of thing we like to cover, so we’ll definitely keep an eye out. — Ernie @ SFB
(via Do Not Track Is An Opportunity, Not a Threat | John Battelle’s Search Blog) This is a mockup — for now anyway. But speaking personally, I think it would be fair enough; albeit with the addition of a 3rd option “click to pay (eg: 2$) for a months access to ad-free version” or similar.
First off, to emphasize again: This is a mockup, not real. But it’s rare to see Microsoft ahead of the curve on something like “Do Not Track,” which will be turned on by default on IE10. The solution for sites which could suffer from this type of change is to be upfront about it. Or, you know, to change up their model a little. Either way, let’s not do more stuff like this.
For the handful of sites that won’t really work for due to legacy ActiveX controls, there will be a desktop-style browser available as a backup. Thinking about it a little bit, this is a poor handling of this situation if you ask us, because Microsoft runs a highly-used plugin of its own — Silverlight, which drives the Netflix Web app. Sure, Flash needs to die, but is Microsoft in a position to unilaterally make this decision?
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