Many folks just want to blow off some extra steam on the Internet. They talk to get something off their "chest" and they don't care if anyone listens. These folks usually give their frank opinions. They make a lot of enemies, but they also make friends. If you love writing Captain Ahab/Elizabeth Bennet slash fiction, and you don't care who knows it, your sincerity will make you some friends.
Many folks want some fame but don't care about making money. Many webcomic artists fall into this category. They want to get fan mails about how their art is awesome, but they don't care if they never sell any pieces. These folks sometimes hold back from giving their frank opinions, because they don't want to alienate potential fans who might write fan mail. If these folks have a Captain Ahab/Elizabeth Bennet fanfic on their hard drive, they might decide not to post it because they don't want hate mail from the "Team Darcy" website.
Some folks, however, want to make some money on the web, which means they are in the business of getting geeks to trust them with credit card numbers. Maybe they're selling game downloads, or online comic books, or Metafilter/Reddit privileges. But they need to be trusted, at least enough to process a credit card charge. These folks *frequently* don't give their frank opinions. They run a customer service forum and they pay people to moderate their forum and they tell these employees, "Do *not* discuss *any* slash fic. Don't mention that you read some kind. Don't mention that you hate people who read other kinds. Some of our customers spend hundreds of dollars on doujinshi depicting Fafnir _in_ _flagrante_ _delicto_ with Grendel's Mother. The rest of our customers hate those folks even more than they hate furries. We want all of them to spend money at our website, so remove controversial threads before Google can cache them."
Anyone who has had to make a profit can sympathize with this bottom-line avoidance of the issue. Controversy is bad for profits. But avoiding all controversy doesn't build a community: it just means that geeks who rabidly hate each others' guts will be either be walking on eggshells to avoid getting banned, or using expendable accounts to take a political stand. Some guys love their hobbies enough to get banned from a paid site in order to take a stand for their lifestyles.
So anyone who tries to avoid controversy while marketing niche products and services is following a perverse incentive.
Oh, yeah, before you ask:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafnir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel%27s_mother
I haven't seen the doujinshi, but there are no exceptions to Rule 34. And that lends a deeper shade of meaning to "perverse" incentives.
Many folks want some fame but don't care about making money. Many webcomic artists fall into this category. They want to get fan mails about how their art is awesome, but they don't care if they never sell any pieces. These folks sometimes hold back from giving their frank opinions, because they don't want to alienate potential fans who might write fan mail. If these folks have a Captain Ahab/Elizabeth Bennet fanfic on their hard drive, they might decide not to post it because they don't want hate mail from the "Team Darcy" website.
Some folks, however, want to make some money on the web, which means they are in the business of getting geeks to trust them with credit card numbers. Maybe they're selling game downloads, or online comic books, or Metafilter/Reddit privileges. But they need to be trusted, at least enough to process a credit card charge. These folks *frequently* don't give their frank opinions. They run a customer service forum and they pay people to moderate their forum and they tell these employees, "Do *not* discuss *any* slash fic. Don't mention that you read some kind. Don't mention that you hate people who read other kinds. Some of our customers spend hundreds of dollars on doujinshi depicting Fafnir _in_ _flagrante_ _delicto_ with Grendel's Mother. The rest of our customers hate those folks even more than they hate furries. We want all of them to spend money at our website, so remove controversial threads before Google can cache them."
Anyone who has had to make a profit can sympathize with this bottom-line avoidance of the issue. Controversy is bad for profits. But avoiding all controversy doesn't build a community: it just means that geeks who rabidly hate each others' guts will be either be walking on eggshells to avoid getting banned, or using expendable accounts to take a political stand. Some guys love their hobbies enough to get banned from a paid site in order to take a stand for their lifestyles.
So anyone who tries to avoid controversy while marketing niche products and services is following a perverse incentive.
Oh, yeah, before you ask:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafnir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel%27s_mother
I haven't seen the doujinshi, but there are no exceptions to Rule 34. And that lends a deeper shade of meaning to "perverse" incentives.