I've used this...it's way cool. Turns your web browser into an investing powerhouse. Nice job LikeFolio!

Thanks. Yes that was the goal...just built something we wanted to use.

Ha! Awesome. Should have thought of that one.

That's not my take at all.

The content companies do believe they are God's gift to mankind and they have some very anti-customer policies. They think they are optimizing their revenue from such policies.

I think they underestimate the kind of growth they could see if they started treating their customers the way that most of the tech industry does.

Tech is far from perfect, but it does a better job of being customer centric.

There are certainly ways that tech companies operate in a Hollywoodesque manner.

Apple trying to assert DMCA against jailbreaking phones is a great example. It's YOUR phone. You paid $600 for it (either over time, or up front). You should be able to do whatever you want with it.

You've made a very poor case with Google privacy policies, though. If you don't use Google+, there's no way for any of its privacy policies to affect you. If you don't like their policies, don't use their free product. Period.

I suppose I jumped into an example I didn't fully understand--sorry about that :)

I killed it. Only added it because some readers were having a hard time finding the "share" buttons. I'll find a better solution.

That looks exactly like the OKTrends sharing bar. Did you implement it, or is there js library for that?

I agree. Readers were asking me for share and tweet buttons, even though they were in the post, but that pop down is annoying. I killed it.

But what if by losing, the court invalidates all of Hollywood's ridiculous licensing ploys as well? That would be winning by losing. :)

That's the legal ju-jitsu performed by the GNU GPL and related copyleft licenses.

The stronger the anti-misappropriation measures of copyright law, the stronger the sharing (and compulsory re-licensing) provisions of the GPL.

Playing other legal regimens against themselves in a similar fashion is a creative and often effective strategy.

Agreed if they are selling the ads directly.

They could throw Google AdWords up there and have the ads algorithmically placed.

They won't make as much money but they wouldn't have to beg.

In essence, my argument is this: because at their core, they are an unbiased source of information, the less controlling interests involved, the better.

To generate revenue from ads is to "sell" a piece of themselves. Equate it somewhat to raising money from investors. They now have much more revenue, but at the cost of some of the control of their company. Ads certainly don't take away control in the sense investors do, but depending on the revenue from ads in any way is an extremely slippery slope.

How about only showing the ads until each month's (or the year's) costs are met?

That way there's no temptation to try to derive a profit from it, and at worst you end up with ads on Wikipedia for a couple of months out of the year (kind of like you get now).

Costs aren't a fixed thing. Organizations can always use more resources, and people can always thing up more great things to do.

I think their fixed fundraising period is a better way to do things. Although I'd really like to see them build up an endowment and live off that.

They would undoubtedly make a lot more.

FWIW I find the current begging really offputting and irritating. More so than small relevant text adverts would be.

Online news sites run ads without worrying about impartiality etc. I don't see why wikipedia worries so much about it.

That's a great idea.

It wasn't a bash. I love MG's writing and I love a lot of Apple products. It's nothing more than an inside joke.

Jason's point still stands. This "joke" is old and boring and contributes nothing.

You forgot the "imho"