This column is about TANSTAAFL, which is a term from a book by Robert A. Heinlein (one of the best Science Fiction authors that ever lived) called "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". The term means "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". This concept is the basis of the plot of the book, which is about a Lunar penal colony and it's attempt to free itself from Earth domination.
Today I received some comments regarding the "Geocities Gets Hostile". I would like to respond to some of those (all from the same author, who did not leave his return email address) in this forum.
" Geocities and other free hosts are home to tons of newbies who don't know any better than to link to graphics and other file types at the sites where they find them. As you probably know, that's bandwidth theft, and complaints regarding bandwidth theft are numerous at free hosts and take time and cost money to be investigated. By preventing the loading of external files, the free host save themselves a lot of time and expense, allowing them to remain free. You conveniently overlook that."
I do understand the concept of bandwidth theft and have written about it many times in the past. This is actually not a clear cut case of bandwidth theft, since the site owner (the webmaster) authorized the use of the bandwidth. Bandwidth theft is usually interpreted as someone other than the webmaster using bandwidth. For example, I pay my host for my site and I get a certain amount of bandwidth. Since I am the site owner, I have decided it is fine with me for my ring graphics on all of my ring members fragments to be loaded from my site. I am paying so I can make the decision. If, however, someone else decides to use my graphics directly in his page without my permission, then you can bet I will take action to get him to stop - it's my bandwidth, not his. In the case of Geocities, the water is muddied because the site owner (or webmaster) is not actually paying for the bandwidth.
That was the real point of the article - if you get something for free, you need to understand that the cost is hidden. Thus the name of the article series "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Free services can and will change their policies at will, and you cannot do much about them because, hey, you aren't paying for it anyway. You want to avoid this - then pay for the service. Hence my sentence "My recommendation, as always, is to pay for your site."
Another point is that yes, indeed, Geocities has every right to disable remote file loading. However, I question that they have the right to suddenly begin enforcing a policy that was never enforced. You can bet if people were paying their own money to Geocities and they decided to take this action, then a whole lot of annoyed customers would have forced them to change their mind.
"I'd also disagree that a policy is not a policy if it's not enforced. A policy IS a policy, period. You'd be ranting just as hard if they had "content police" that combed their hosted web sites looking for violators of policy. They investigate what gets complained about, pure and simple."
You are completely wrong on the point about a policy being a policy, period. Business often get tripped up on this point, as they assume that all they need to do is write employee policy and procedures manuals then forget to enforce what they have written. What happens is they allow an employee to do something against company policy and by allowing it on a consistent basis their policy is actually changed implicitly to match their behavior. The courts are very, very clear on this.
A good example of this is with sexual harassment. A company can write all of the policies that it wants to against this form of evil, but if it does not enforce them then it becomes liable for their supervisors behavior. The courts will and have assumed that in all cases the policy being followed takes precedence over the policy that is written in these instances.
Another example is employee tardiness. This actually affected me. I had an employee who was consistently late. I was a new manager so didn't take any action, even though it was against the written company policy. Guess what, when I finally did need to take action it was too late. I (and some other supervisors where I worked) had effectively changed company policy by not following it. We could do nothing against the employee. So we were informed by the EEOC.
This holds true with copyrights also. A copyright is only as good as it is enforced. If you look the other way when someone steals your work and publishes it, you are de-facto allowing him to copy it. Keep doing this and, again, you will find that your copyrights disappear. This is why Viacom is working so hard to shut down Star Trek fan sites - if they do not, they take the risk that their copyrights to the Star Trek materials become null and void. They have to at least attempt to prosecute people who violate their copyrights.
It does not take much thought to see how this could apply in the Geocities case about which I wrote. Geocities has not enforced their rule against bandwidth theft, so they have by default allowed it. It does not matter what is written - a judge could easily decide, in a class action suit, that the policy was implicitly changed by Geocities by not enforcing it.
It is sheer idiocy to state that "a policy is a policy, period". Policies are only as good as their enforcement. If you do not enforce anything it becomes meaningless, both in the physical universe and in the eyes of the law. The law works by precedent - what has been decided or done in the past.
To give a nice simple example that anyone can understand, you can write a policy that the sky is purple, but unless someone pumps a whole lot of colored smoke into the air it will remain blue. The point? You have to actually do something to make a policy real.
My point in the article is that free hosts like Geocities are free for a reason - their customers are not their users. Their customers are their advertisers. Thus, their loyalties, which are purely mercenary, are to their advertisers, not their actual users. The webmasters who painstakingly create sites which display banners are commodities, not flesh and blood human beings with feelings and emotions. At least that's the way I'd judge Geocities by their actions.
My anonymous author concluded as follows:
"In your zeal to condemn, you reveal your lack of understanding and your lack of investigating the issue you write about. Anyone can whine, complain, and bemoan, it doesn't even take brains. Try being constructive and using your obvious writing talent for better purposes."
This author misses the point entirely. I will state it bluntly here. I believe that business needs to be ethical in order to prosper and thrive. Businesses that are not ethical tend to die and be in constant conflict, and are just not good places to be associated with.
Ethical conduct in this instance means that Geocities needs to understand that they host hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of web sites. By doing this, they have taken on a responsibility which goes beyond just the bottom line or giving an extra penny to their stockholders.
Geocities failed to act responsibly and ethically in this instance, because they narrowly defined their goals as simply improving their cash flow. They forgot that their services are used by real human beings. People who have slaved and worked their butts off to communicate with their fellow human beings. Men and women with real feelings, goals and lives.
There is nothing more sacred and important than communication. Witness this by the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights - Freedom Of Speech. We all have the right to communicate. One of the first things a prisoner learns is his right to communicate has been severely restricted or removed entirely. This demonstrates how important this right truly is.
Geocities could have acted ethically and still achieved a similar purpose. They could have said, "yes, we know people have been remotely loading graphics. We don't like it and here is why. New web sites will not be allowed to do this. However, as many webmasters took advantage of this and because we value the contribution they have made to the internet community, we will not restrict existing sites." They could also have sent out a note in advance warning their users that this was coming, at the very least. Instead, they just cut the cord and basically said, "you guys are just commodities. We don't care about your web sites, your creations or what you have to communicate. We don't care if you've made the most beautiful thing on the planet - we only care about money."
So what I am saying is you don't have to put up with companies who show a lack of civic responsibility or ethics. Don't do business with them. Personally, I have deleted all of my Geocities sites (about half a dozen of them) and moved them to a company which is, in my opinion, ethical.
I made the same decision when Yahoo destroyed the awesomely wonderful webring system for their own bottom line, and I will shortly be leaving Yahoo Clubs for the same reason. Likewise, while I am not particularly fond of Dolphins, I am happy to pay an extra couple of pennies a can so that fishermen can afford to act responsibly and not needlessly slaughter them.
You see, Mr. anonymous writer, there is a higher level of responsibility that capable, intelligent people can ascribe to than just merely making money or being mercenaries. We human beings are fully capable of caring about others, of recognizing the extreme work and effort that goes into creations and of acknowledging that there are more important things than making a quick buck.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.