Quote:
Originally Posted by dmhubby
I don't think I agree that truly free speech means giving everything you do away free. Have to ponder that one some more.
This is a very legit point. I would not say "the industry" blocks these countries. It's more the credit card companies block them. I can tell you this from experience ... Many of the high risk countries are high risk for a reason. Dreamnet.com ran it's own merchant account until 2006 when Visa/MC and Discover started cracking down so hard. Then it became to expense with to many hoops to jump through. So we saw every single charge back and it was true that many stolen credit card orders came from the so called "high risk" countries. So it's tough.
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I meant
available, not 100% free. If you see advertisement on internet (the global market), it kinda sucks if you click for purchase, and for some reason you are not allowed to pay.
The reason could be restricted to some countries because of broadcasting rights, you live in a "high risk" area etc. Still, if you are a legit potential customer it sucks. So there may be only one way to get the product/service, through illegal channels. That is not an excuse, but a side effect.
The artists, photographers etc. who want to share (but also monetize) their work with the world, cannot do that with such barriers. Why should VISA and other bigger companies be the barrier? Why are file hosts successfull with alternative methods, but not this industry?
As affiliate, I could block all 'high risk' countries when advertising adult sites. But I'm not. For some good reasons:
1. I believe in free speech/no censorship. If I block surfers from a free site (free site = licensed content, not stolen) because of their economic or geographic status, then my "belief" would be double standards (= do it only for the money). Why should I block a Chinese surfer, and at the same time tell China to stop censorship?
2. It's better to give out some free, but limited amount of content, to reduce their consume from fully piracy websites.
3. Freebies still have a value. The traffic is worth something as trading traffic, reputation etc. If a sales ratio is overall 1:100, those other 99% still have a value. Treat them good, and within the legal channels.
In these times, this industry need to reconsider how to value and treat the traffic. Traffic that is lost. It really amaze me, when two program owners are fighting 1 week on this board about 1 picture, and at the same time there are full site rips elsewhere, their website is spoofed and backdoored. What kind of priority is that?
It's tough enough for the business to keep up with laws, competition and other restrictions, but without some
common strategy and policy, everyone will fail in the end.