Information Station - Rant

[Anonymous]

Hi all,
Rant time,
Thought I would check out this new Information Station idea being promoted by Model Railroader.
I must say it is a great idea to group related articles into PDF files for download. I can also see the justification for charging a small fee for this service but boy have Model Railroader got it wrong.
I can not see how they can justify $5.95 for downloading a PDF file of 5 Articles and 13 pages when I then have to print it on my paper, using my ink, wearing out my printer. When I can buy Model Railroad Planning 2005 which has 10 Articles and I assume about 30 pages for $5.95 delivered in the US printed on their nice glossy paper using their ink etc etc etc

Come on MR get your act together. Charging a buck a download is much more reasonable and sensible and is likely to get more downloads.

Anyone else think this is a ripoff.?[:(!]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tinhare


Anyone else think this is a ripoff.?[:(!]

It does seem a steep price to pay considering one can download an entire issue of Finescale Railroader http://www.finescalerr.com/download.htm on PDF for free.
Jaime

[Anonymous]

They seem to go by # of pages; some of the downloads go up to $14.95. I was interested in downloading the weathering one, but $8.95 for 19 pages isn't worth it.

[bcammack]

If everybody votes with their wallets, I'm sure they'll get the message. [:)]

[sundayniagara]

They'll get their act together one of these days.
Mark

[chutton01]

Those prices are rather high - I could see a schedule of 50 cents (US) a column (or a 1 page article), 1.00 for an average 4-5 page Article, and maybe 1.50 for a rather large (8-10 page) article.
And this would include a library of other magazines articles, for the past several decades, so you could perhaps pull a RMC article about wiring N-scale overhead from April 1989 (just an example - no idea if there is such an article)

[Anonymous]

Gonna have to agree with you guys. After finding out about the new Traction, what I though was book, the MR guy posted that it was a download. Way cool, thought I, I can start reading it tonight. But then I saw the price and the page count. Wow. A little steep for something I can't even thumb through before purchasing. Now if it was a real book, maybe, but a PDF download sight unseen? Sorry, MR, gonna have to pass on this one.

[Anonymous]

I concur, its a good idea but pricing is unrealistic. (As, by the way, is pricing for individual back issues of the magazine). I realize they're terrified of hurting their reader base for the magazine but I don't believe that more realistic pricing for downloads would actually hurt any.

[Anonymous]

At the least, the description of the PDF should say more than "19 pages, 5 articles" -- at least identify what articles they are (titles at least), and from what issues of MR. I'd be really teed off if I spent $9 to download a bunch of articles that I already had in back issues in my collection.

[PennsyHoosier]

I am bound to agree with the general perspective here. When I first saw this, I was fired up. Then I saw the cost. I'm a pretty savvy internet user, and this pricing is fairly steep, in my opinion. Too bad, it looks like it might be good stuff. And if it were more reasonably priced, it might entice some folks to SUBSCRIBE to the wonderful mag that consistently produces this excellent material (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

[Anonymous]

Pennsy Hoosier,

I'm starting to think we're brothers separated at birth - we pretty much agree on everything! lol.

If MR really wants to sell these, perhaps in addition to joe's idea of showing the table of contents on the site MR should also show some pics and give a better description of the various articles, especially any content that isn't from a past issue.

Hope MR is listening!! (And if you guys are - although we are complaining, I think everyone here likes you guys much more than M. Wolfe! lol).

[Anonymous]

I agree the costs are high, but as I see it, MR is factoring in the cost of the employee's time to search for the material, scan it for the PDF file, place in online, etc. I'm sure it isn't cheap. It's sort of like having a private research assistant to make the material available. If all of their past issues were digitised, it wouldn't take long, but I assume the current process is labor intensive, and that's what they are charging for.

There are other ways to find articles that you are looking for anyway.

Bob Boudreau

[CBQ_Guy]

Tinhare,

I agree and for the same reasons...others I've read commenting on the topic feel the same as well.

In fact, I don't recall anyone stating online that it is a good "deal" costwise. Too bad . . .