My Turn

Freakin' Awful

- 2001.10.03

My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .

MacAddict is going to start charging shareware authors $500 to include their software on The Disc - and even more for corporate contributors. Come November they're going to have to start calling it The Coaster, 'cause that's all that it'll be good for. Now if it was $500 for a year for corporate and $50 a year for shareware and included all of your titles (not just one), maybe that might go over; otherwise, you're going to be listening to a lot of bippity-bop electronic garage music and watching a really loooooong flash animation by the index-writing guy.

Speaking of which, it occurs to me that the reason they're charging is that it is so expensive to create The Disc in the first place. Let's see, why is that? Could it be all the fluffy technojunk they put on there to make it look like they created the content provided for free from their contributors? What about the fancy multi-colored CD labels?

Want to cut expenses, MacAddict? Drop the Flash interface. Lose the custom techno-bop player. Stick with content.

Geeze, these authors are doing you a favor, folks. There's only one big advantage a CD with a paper mag has over the Internet itself: You don't have to go find the content yourself. It's all in one place, and it comes with its own backup. For really big files, it's faster than a modem or even cable. Take away a healthy collection of files, and what's left?

No individual file can sell the Disc to readers; it's the collection of files, the promise of finding something new we hadn't heard of, that makes us defy our common sense and pay for something that we could download for free ourselves.

It's all about content, baby.

As Ross Perot once said, "There'll be a giant sucking sound," and then we'll all have to go back and subscribe to Macworld, for criminy sakes. I hope MacAddict can find some other way to balance the books - or they might find themselves with no books to balance.

Two words, guys: Freakin' awful!

Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.

Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Google+, or subscribe to our RSS news feed

Today's Links

Recent Content

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Opinions expressed are those of their authors and may not reflect the opinion of Cobweb Publishing. Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all.
  Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2016 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, Mac Pro, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
  Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it, and we don't share the information we have with others. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Page not found | Low End Mac

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Try looking in the monthly archives. :)

Tags

802.11g 802.11n 68030 68040 Apple April Fools clamshell iBook Classic Mac OS FireWire FireWire 400 G3 humor iBook iMac iMac G3 Intel iOS iPad iPhone LaserWriter Linux Mac MacBook Air Mac clones Mac mini Mac OS 9 macOS Sierra Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Microsoft OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.7 Lion OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion OS X 10.9 Mavericks OS X 10.10 Yosemite OS X 10.11 El Capitan Performa PowerBook PowerPC Rodney O. Lain SCSI Thunderbolt USB 1.1 USB 2.0
Page not found | Low End Mac

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Try looking in the monthly archives. :)

Tags

802.11g 802.11n 68030 68040 Apple April Fools clamshell iBook Classic Mac OS FireWire FireWire 400 G3 humor iBook iMac iMac G3 Intel iOS iPad iPhone LaserWriter Linux Mac MacBook Air Mac clones Mac mini Mac OS 9 macOS Sierra Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Microsoft OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.7 Lion OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion OS X 10.9 Mavericks OS X 10.10 Yosemite OS X 10.11 El Capitan Performa PowerBook PowerPC Rodney O. Lain SCSI Thunderbolt USB 1.1 USB 2.0

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
Cult of Mac
Shrine of Apple
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
The Vintage Mac Museum
Deal Brothers
DealMac
Mac2Sell
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End Mac FAQ

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
Macgo Blu-ray Player
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay

Low End Mac's Amazon.com store

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact Page not found | Low End Mac

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Try looking in the monthly archives. :)

Tags

802.11g 802.11n 68030 68040 Apple April Fools clamshell iBook Classic Mac OS FireWire FireWire 400 G3 humor iBook iMac iMac G3 Intel iOS iPad iPhone LaserWriter Linux Mac MacBook Air Mac clones Mac mini Mac OS 9 macOS Sierra Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Microsoft OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.7 Lion OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion OS X 10.9 Mavericks OS X 10.10 Yosemite OS X 10.11 El Capitan Performa PowerBook PowerPC Rodney O. Lain SCSI Thunderbolt USB 1.1 USB 2.0
at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link