Don't Back Down

Unfortunately, this isn't the title of the same name from Lemony Snicket. It's not even a book. It's a great deal of hubbub about someone who has decided that they don't want their RSS feed to be available in Bloglines. This is an interesting decision, and you will find many opinions about it.

I'm not going to question the decision. It's his (presumably, it could be her) feed. I just don't get it. Not the decision. It's an admirable one, that you decide you want control. I think it's great that he made his choice and has defended it, in spite of all the criticism. What I don't get is what I will call the consistency of the decision.

That is to say, the argument provided in support of the decision is remarkably inconsistent. You don't want or like Bloglines, and don't want them to have your feed, that's fine. Say so. You don't or aren't able to do it yourself through .htaccess or other methods, that's fine. Say so. You aren't to be troubled with applying your licensing consistently between your web pages and your feeds, that's fine. Say so.

But when the defense instead takes the form of a perceived slight - one which hasn't even happened (that is to say, Bloglines inserting advertising) - and singling out one of many providers who might do this, it makes no sense to me. Still, it is his decision and I don't argue it. I just don't understand.

There are other online aggregators who make money from aggregating feeds. One of those is Newsgator Online. They actually collect money for particular plans (or did, the last time that I looked). How is it that a venture that is actually generating revenue (presumably), at this moment, is not pointed out, but another venture, that is not collecting even a cent of revenue, is singled out? That makes no sense.

And it really shouldn't stop there. Organizations such as Google do the same thing with web pages. Sure, it can be argued that you can profit from Google. But there is nothing stopping a competitor from buying ads through Google that show up when they find your page. The ad isn't on the page itself, but it is a very fine line, isn't it? Especially when you consider that Google is actually raking in the dough from their advertisements and Mark, so far as I know, hasn't inserted even a single one into a feed on Bloglines.

What's more, one of the arguments for Google (and by implication, against Bloglines) is that Google's ads can generate revenue for the site owner, is just bunk. If your competition puts an ad on Google that comes up when your site is found, you don't make a cent from that ad. And no one ever said that Bloglines wouldn't allow a similar arrangement, so that's really not much of an argument. In fact, Bloglines never said that you couldn't simply opt-out of the advertising. Remember, this is something that hasn't happened yet, and someone has their panties in a bunch because it might. Still, it's their choice to do so - it just doesn't make sense to me.

And lest I seem unbalanced (in terms of the debate, my mental state won't be discussed at this time), it's not just that there is one person who made a decision I don't understand. There are people supporting the decision who don't comprehend. Take this person, who thinks that using a client-side aggregator, specifically FeedDemon, is an action supported by the declaration against Bloglines. Uh, okay. What if FeedDemon uses Bloglines Web Services to get its feeds? The line shrinks even further.

It seems to me that there are loads of technological issues here that a lot of people simply don't understand. Hopefully someone will before this gets completely out of control.