Tuesday, December 22, 2009

How much does Free cost again?

One of supposedly hard question is what is the actual cost of freedom of speech. It can be debated endlessly, and is often considered priceless (Mastercard trademarks not-with-standing). Hard question, sure, and something I generally don't spend much time thinking about.

And then again, sometimes it is rather easy to know the exact cost. Like in case of my little blog: it is US$ 9.95.

That ultra fancy commenting interface that you see next to entries (and elaborate insanely complicated machinery that powers in in the backend), provided by kind folks of Haloscan, has been free (of cost) so far. But it was very recently brought to my attention that there is now a simple choice for me, a happy user of said system, to make: I am free to either (a) pay up (annual fee), or (b) "vacate the premises" (but with graceful allowance of letting me keep stuff I brought along, i.e. export comments!). What's not to like? What a delightful jule-time offer!

Choice is bit tricky: on one hand, philosophically I do not object to paying for services I use (or offer for others to use). But on the other hand, I really REALLY dislike impression of a bait-and-switch scheme in operation. Worse, given the short transition period -- unless I totally missed earlier notices, just a couple of weeks -- makes this feel rather rushed, "an offer you can't refuse". So in many ways I do feel like just taking my crap (no offense to respected authors of high-quality commentary here) to someplace else. Perhaps even spending lotsa time (which is money) to build a simple replacement for the system. Heck, I have been paid to write such systems. Might as well do some pro bono work for my own blog. But then again... I am lazy and time-constrained.

So: question is; is this dinky little commentary system worth 10 bucks a year? Especially when advertising income from all the sidebar ads is within that same order of magnitude, possibly less.

ps. Anyone know an actual free plug-in comment interface? Send me a note if you do! (or if you must... leave a comment... but if so, before Jan 02, 2010 :-) )

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