dear espn.com
fuck you. seriously. i haven’t decided if you’re assholes or just idiots. likely both.
so, i’m perusing your page on the ALDS match-up between the sox and angels. there, under “Angels’ Local Headlines”, is this gem, that begs to followed: “No coming-out parties for Lackey“. who can resist that? naturally, i clicked the link…and got directed to the “sign up for espn insider” page. are you fucking kidding me? you dimwits are routing outside content links thru your subscription site? there is a reason i don’t subscribe to espn insider. namely, i don’t want to. it’s a damn good reason too. stupid crap like only allowing your paying readers to follow links to other sites, even if it’s a mistake, only reinforce my opinion that give you jackasses money would be a waste. even though i’d get to read gammon’s column.
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
I literally can’t imagine paying for content on the web. There is more than enough free content to occupy all of my free time (and most of my work time), with enough left over to neglect my children and my personal hygiene.
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:39 pm
precisely. and to only allow those of your readers who do pay you to link thru to free content on a different website is beyond stupid.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:42 am
Welcome to the joyous world of technical publications. Abstracts and tables of contents are published by a variety of services (often the publisher, but universities compile them too), but the journal content is behind a subscription wall.
It makes it bloody difficult to do my job, considering that my miserly company susbscribes to approximately zero journals or search databases.
K
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:25 pm
well, it would have been one thing if they were linking to subscription content on a different site. but no, it was on the public espn page, and the story that link should have gone to is right here. but when you follow the link from espn, you get their page to sign up for espn insider. fucking stupid. why would i pay them to follow a link to free content on a different site? makes no sense. are they trying to get more people to sign up for insider? do they think people don’t realize they can just go to, say, latimes.com directly (like i wound up doing). i have to think it’s a coding error, but still.