Scott,
You asked Rick why he doesn't want to do what is best for the FTA hobby. Have you considered that he honestly believes that he already is?
I have many friends in the FTA hobby. We don't all agree about feed posting, it's just that simple. I
don't have a problem with it, some of my friends do. But we are still friends. I won't go into the same old justification for my point of view. I just think what I think.
What I take extreme exception to, is that some in the course of this thread have called Rick some pretty bad names. No matter what anyone thinks of Rick's business decisions... he is not a sleezeball or a liar. If Rick says something, it is either true, or at least what he believes to be true. Rick simply doesn't say things that he knows isn't true for any reason... money or otherwise.
Rick is a stand up guy who believes in what he's doing. Many disagree with what he's doing. But there are two sides with different views. Just because he takes an opposing view doesn't make him a money mongering lying sleezeball. If people want to say that he's hurting the hobby... fine. I don't agree, but fine. Everyone is entitled to thier own opinion... right? But saying that he's hurting the hobby is different than mean spirited name calling.
I'm sure I'll be thrown into the "head in the sand" or "Kool-Aid drinking" category by many here. But sometimes that's the price for speaking up.
Cheers
Thank you. Finally some logic. And besides the "head in the sand" and "Kool-Aid drinking" categories, don't forget the "half a brain" category. Virtually every quality forum or mailing list I have been involved with prohibits personal attacks, even if they are only implied, and many prohibit them even against people who aren't part of the forum. To me, this is the most distasteful thing about this whole thread, ie the name calling both aimed at people who are in the minority in THIS thread, but also the attacks agains Rick, who I too am convinced that he is doing what he thinks is best for the hobby, and who, despite accusations by moderators here, is very fair to his customers, and bends over backwards to help those with problems. I was convinced of this after seeing what he did to help people with bad Azbox power supplies. That impressed me enough that I given him a good deal of business since then. Anyway, if this is the way people who have opinions that differ with the majority here, then I'm disappointed. And, to pull up another old post in this thread:
For those of you telling everyone not to post anything at Ricks, have you boycotted the site altogether, stopped going there, or are you still looking there for feeds you may have missed? Think about that.
Yes, think about that. Reading this reminds me that I bet Rick's site is the first place people that are critical of him go to find where to find their favorite team's game. Back before Rick's site, the paranoia went after Lyngsat, and again, virtually everyone uses Lyngsat while complaining about it. Lyngsat didn't kill the FTA hobby, it probably is largely responsible for it growing. Rick's site won't kill the hobby either. I'm convinced that it will help it grow.
Now, on to a few other topics...
Blackmail....
I think people are missing the point here. It's the uplinkers who are doing the blackmailing. My way of thinking is that they try to make FTA'ers think that they should keep the feed details secret or they'll encrypt. Basically it's the uplinkers who are trying to kill the hobby, and the best way for them to do that is to keep the info from as many people as possible so that new people aren't brought into the hobby. The uplinkers have people who are members of these forums, and know that we're watching. They're not worried about the existing number of FTA'ers finding about feeds in public sites, they're worried about the hobby growing by people learning about what FTA is all about. I think that it is very selfish for the people in this hobby who know what's up there to have the mentality of let's keep this good thing secret. Essentially, it's my opinion that we have all been blackmailed, but Rick has refused to pay the ransom. Satguys is paying the ransom by helping kill the hobby by not letting the word get out.
Threats...
Some here are skeptical about Rick's mentioning threats. As mentioned before I have read posts suggesting denial of service attacks on his site, and in this thread several people are going over there and clogging his forum with complaints, which is basically harassment. I don't know what other threats he may have received, but I have no reason to doubt that there have been more.
Follow the money:
I keep hearing that here, but I don't understand the conclusions. Rick's business relies on the hobby thriving. It wouldn't make sense for him to do something that was bad for the hobby, and he isn't. Now, follow the money with respect to Satguys.... Satguys has advertisers dealing with DBS subscriptions. Is it any surprise that the sticky thread about what can I see with an 18" dish keep saying NOTHING, which the mods KNOW isn't true. So who is doing the best job of attracting new people into the hobby? Rick, who is honest about what is up there, or Satguys, who have sticky posts that discourage people with little dishes, who are curious enough to try out the hobby, but want to start out on the cheap by first experimenting with a dish they already have. These are people that would eventually upgrade to bigger dishes, but are told that they have to start out with a bigger system. Again, Satguys, not Rick, is hurting the hobby.
Re bots/search engines....
This is the one area where there is "some" logic to the arguments here, not because the actual people who are doing the encryption are using the bots/search engines... they are already members of all these forums, and know what we know. The one, (and only as far as I'm concerned) reason for keeping the feed info in protected forums is because the executives and beancounters might come across the info, and tell their techs to encrypt. The techs themselves generally don't want to encrypt, possibly because they are hobbiests too. My feeling is, if the execs see something and cause their techs to encrypt, then fine. You lose one, you gain one. For every service I've seen encrypt, I've seen others come and take their place. There is always plenty to watch, and until DVB and DVB-S2 is obsolete, there will always be plenty to watch. If they want to encrypt, that's their right. What's best for the hobby is to get the info on what ISN'T encrypted out to the most people.
Re closed posts..
I can't believe that this is even being discussed. This forum has more closed thread than any other forum I've been in. Yes, a thread like this is allowed to continue as long as the company line is winning, but as soon as it looks like the tide might turn, then it's thread closed time. Yes, usually it in topics regarding pirate activites, but more often than not, the threads are closed while the discussion is still about technical issues that have nothing to do with bypassing encryption. Rick closes threads or deletes posts that he thinks are detrimental to his business and the hobby, and that is logical.
Anyway, the main thing, as mentioned up at the top, is that there are good people who think it's wrong to post feed details in public, and there are good people who honestly believe that it's good for the hobby to share as much info as possible. I am really disappointed at the tone of the discussion here, and disappointed that so many people here can't accept that not everyone agrees with them. Funny that this all come up right at the same time as all the political sniping on TV. I think the attacks here are very similar to the political attack ads, in that they don't have any respect for opposing opinions.
OK, back to hibernation mode.
.
