DISQUS

Rob Hyndman · 3 years ago

"Would the quality of photos on Flickr be better if top photogs were paid? Maybe. But there wouldn’t be the variety, and that’s much of what I (and others I think) find interesting."

Sure there would be the variety. You're not paying everyone, just the top posters. Everyone else who contributes now would still contribute. And many of them might contribute more, hoping to get a paying gig. That would increase variety. People who want to do it for free can still do it for free. And obviously one doesn't keep paying someone who doesn't attract a following - in the same way one wouldn't pay anyone who didn't do their work well - they'd be canned. Contribute content that people have no interest in, and you're out. Simple. So, nothing lost, but something gained. Potentially, a lot.

And as far as Flickr is concerned, a lot of the amateur photos are nice, but you can tell a pro's work in an instant. The differences are obvious. Many of them now post on Flickr for the free advertising, for the competitive aspect of getting comments on their pics, for the community (though this is questionable because there are 1000 complete amateurs for every pro and pros naturally want to commune with other pros) and for the input (though I think the last motive is likely way down the list, for the same reason). Start paying them to contribute, and the quality of content on the community will dramatically improve. But of course, that's not what Flickr is about, is it. For most, it's a place to put your own photos so others can see them. It's not mainly a place to go see photos of interest. So the idea of paying contributors doesn't really make sense for this community - because we 're not really using the content to bring people to the community. Different community, different needs.

Naturally, Rose doesn't like the idea. He wants to keep the money. And his justification is bogus. As I said, someone who doesn't produce - not merely posts, but a following - doesn't get paid. So the posts have to be interesting. And one isn't going to sit around all day posting to Digg, whether for money or not, if one isn't interested / passionate about doing it in the first place. Keep spinning, Kevin.

Mathew Ingram · 3 years ago

Thanks for the comment, Rob. Boy, I hope you can keep up this kind of pace when you get back to work :-)

I would have to disagree with your comments about Flickr though -- I think a lot of people do go there to see other people's pictures, not just to share their own (I know I do), and in many cases it is the non-professional ones I like the best, or at least the ones I assume are non-professional, since the line between professional and non-professional is becoming increasingly blurry (which I guess is part of what we're talking about in a way).

Savio Rodrigues · 3 years ago

Hi Mathew,

If we apply lessons from the open source world, then paying the top 1% of contributors is similar to hiring/paying the core developers on an open source project. And we all know that this is the route that mature open source projects follow.

I just blogged about this here. I think it comes down to the balance of capital invested vs. capital returned. For the top contributors, they expend a lot more capital then they receive. For the average contributor, they receive more capital then they expend. I'd suggest this is true for open source projects and for Netscape/Digg.

So, maybe Netscape isn't too far off.

Mathew Ingram · 3 years ago

Thanks for the comment, Savio. I actually just found your post through a pingback and commented on it (and have linked to it above). I think you might be right, and that the idea of a core group of paid users as a "maven trap" is an interesting one. I still wonder whether there isn't something lost when users are paid though -- whether it doesn't change the whole tone of the endeavour. Perhaps I'm just naieve :-)

Eric Berlin · 3 years ago

I always circle back to the notion of a "value proposition" -- there's got to be a win-win for both sides to make for a successful online community of any sort. This may or may not involve cash compensation -- I'd argue that in the vast majority of cases cash doesn't make sense or is unworkable. I think netscape's experiment is both interesting and unique i.e. Calacanis has money to play around with obviously.

At Blogcritics, there's no way that we could pay our 1,700 writer/bloggers. However, we think what we do offer -- writing mentorship (who else does that for "mere" bloggers?), editing of feature-length pieces, thousands of free review materials, exposure to a far larger audience, entry to a pretty cool community and the untold opportunities that brings, Google juice and traffic for home sites, etc. etc. -- is pretty great and has been the fuel to a grassroots phenomenon based upon not a dime of investment cash.

Overall, I find myself ambivalent like you, Mathew. And for some reason I bristle a bit at Rose's notion of the absolutely organic process where users submit and vote for stories simply because "they want to." That doesn't really mean anything, in my view. Everyone outside of prison walls does things because they want to.