Another comment prompted by the LW channel page...
you have six months to download the audio in the podcast (once downloaded they’re yours forever)
If one is free to keep the files forever after downloading them once, why not call this "buy" instead of "subscribe" and give people the right to re-download the files at any time? I doubt you'd lose much money from that, and I expect that it might actually net you more sales. A big reason why I'm happy to use various digital stores is the knowledge that I can always re-download the files at any time if I have a hard drive crash, and don't need to worry about one more thing that I should keep backed up. Or I can even go on a spending spree and buy a big bunch of things at once, knowing that I'll only download a couple of them now and can grab the rest whenever I have the time for them. If there was a time limit on when I needed to download my purchases, I'd be a lot less likely to do that, since I might forget about it.
If you call this "subscribe" and give people a limited amount of time to download the stuff, you're making their mental frame of reference to be to other subscription services, which I expe...
That's pretty convincing. For some reason I had that limited access idea locked in my head. It just stuck for some reason. We will definitely have a chat about changing that very soon.
(Some background: We were going to launch initially with monthly subscriptions, where you get new content every month. In the end, we decided to start with a core sequence and gauge the feedback from everyone. So we had a subscription model "locked in" from early days.)
Update: This limitation and wording has now been removed. However, in our terms of service, we give you a minimum of two years to download the content. We'll keep it up as long as it's technically and financially feasible, or for two years, whichever comes later.
The founders of Castify are big fans of Less Wrong so their rolling out their beta with some of our content.
Twitch.
But seriously, this is great. I'm trying to get into the habit of using podcasts and recorded lectures to make better use of my time, especially while travelling.
I've been lurking on this site for a few months and seeing this in my RSS feed this morning was surprisingly shocking. I guess I just assumed that people trying to be more logical never made this kind of mistake. It was a good reminder that a mistake only invalidates the conclusions drawn from the mistake, so spelling and grammar errors should be pretty low on the list of offenses. It's kind of saddening that this kind of problem draws my attention much quicker than serious logical problems.
People make verbose and lengthy comments instead of short and simple ones. People always speak in a certain type of tone, signalling that they are smart but also that they are Reasonable and they are listening to the points of their opponents. People lace their comments with subtle disclaimers and possible lines of retreat. People take care to use an apologetic tone.
I'm not sure what the problem with any of these is.
I imagine the less technical the subject matter the more likely it is to be useful to listen to as a podcast. I only listen to podcasts when I'm out on errands and so I don't want to or have to devote much mental energy to get something out of the podcast.
So, by this heuristic, I think the quantum physics sequence is probably out and Yudkowsky's coming of age is probably in.
Minor interface tweak: most websites have taught me that if I click on the site logo at the top, I'll be taken back to the front page. I was expecting that to work on Castify as well, but it didn't, which delayed me for about half a second before I located the "Home" link. It's no big deal, but many users would probably prefer it if you followed the normal UI convention.
This lookes like it could be very good. I know some people who have started reading the sequences, were moderately interested, but then stopped as they did not have the time. I am definitely going to recomend this to them. In general, I am a big fan of audiobooks and podcasts for listening to in your spare time, and this combines the greatness of that with the super greatness of the sequences. A big thumbs up from me.
Speaking personally, I'm really put off by the payment model. You're presenting this as "$5 for a one-year subscription". Now, if this was "$5 for a one-year subscription to all our Less Wrong content, released regularly on the following schedule", then that would seem fair value for money. On the other hand, if it was "$5 to buy this sequence, and you can buy other sequences once we have them ready", then that would be okay, too. As is, though it's coming across as "$5 to subscribe to this sequence for one-year, plus ...
The free sample is pretty good. The reader is awesome. You've probably got my (monetary) support in the long run, though I'd like to see how it'd work with Kaj's suggestion about the business model. Getting new people to listen to the sequences would be easier if it doesn't look like there's any commitment, and/or if a sequence can be 'gifted' to someone.
The one nitpick or suggestion I might have, however, would be to have slightly longer pauses between main points / topics, to let everything sink in. The pacing of the reader is excellent, but Eliezer's w...
What we're really interested in doing moving forward, aside from more sequences, is turning the promoted posts into a podcast. This would be offered as a paid monthly subscription.
We'd love the community's feedback on this.
Edit As suggested by somervta, if anyone is themselves interested in narrating some content, please get in touch with us. We'd love to get people familiar with LW content to help out with the load. When we start adding more channels, we expect our of main challenges to be keeping the quality of the readers high.
Just something that jumped at me from the FAQ:
Do I need to create an account?
Yes. This way we can manage which channels you are subscribed to and allows you to sign in and change your Castify subscription status.
An awkward turn of phrase. Consider replacing "which" with "the" and "allows you to" with "let you". Or rephrase it completely.
I realize that you have your own voice actors, but it might not be a bad idea to solicit some help from people already familiar with the whole LessWrong conceptspace. I know we have quite a few members with some excellent recording setups.
I might be missing something obvious but I'm a bit confused about the subscription length. It says on this page that one has 6 months to download the podcast and that you keep them forever. However, it also says in two places that it is 4.99 for 1 year of access. What significance does the year have?
After a very short amount of time listening to a Text to Speech voice I now prefer it to almost any narrator. They are very good these days so I won't be making use of this.
Castify does not appear to have survived? Are the Sequences still out there someplace in audio format?
I see that there's an LW channel subscription page, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of preview that one could use before buying. I presume that there will be one?
This sounds like a great idea. I would be interested to hear "Diseased Thinking about Disease" and the Luminosity sequence in a podcast; also an ongoing podcast for the promoted posts would be pretty cool.
In what way am I deliberately manipulating people using their emotional intuitions? Can you give an example? I'm trying to frame myself in contrast to the norm, I agree with that. I don't think that should be perceived as a bad thing. I think that you perceive that as a bad thing is itself a bad thing.
This itself is a good example of it. I wasn't even touching the concern of whether it should be perceived as bad, or whether my reaction was good. While I used the emotional impacts of the discourse as a datapoint towards a certain other argument, what I said was descriptive, and it wasn't my intention to have any prescriptive statements (other than the actual point of the grandparent, which the quote above has nothing to do with).
I also wasn't saying that I belief you do deliberately attempt to manipulate people with emotional intuitions. I'm saying that, as in the above example I just quoted, some of your statements and phrasings makes my model of you be formed towards "the type of person that deliberately manipulates people with emotional intuitions". Whether the model is accurate or not is a separate matter from that point. I'm inclined to believe that this default model is accurate, and had updated in favor of the opposite (i.e. you don't try to manipulate people using emotions), which in turn prompted me to respond to your comments.
Side note: why am I the one you chose to rebuke, and not Wedrifid? His comment is clearly more illustrative of the things that you are criticizing. My guess: status, and that's all. He's a tough target, but I'm not. I'm going to mentally flag this as a data point pointing towards my belief that LessWrong has an unhealthy level of preoccupation with status that is somehow unquestioningly accepted as normal and healthy. Just a more general point that I felt like making.
Completely irrelevant to the point I was trying to make in the grandparent; You were arguing that tone wasn't (and/or shouldn't) be important, I was offering a piece of evidence to the contrary.
If tone makes it difficult for members of one of the most elite communities of rationalists in the world to engage in dialogue, I doubt the issue can be waved away as "you should just get better at ignoring it".
Your overall argument is that because it is difficult for you to engage my arguments rationally, I ought to change.
It is not.
Most of the world does not speak in the same way that LessWrong does, but they still have valuable things to say. Recognizing that and adapting to it would be beneficial.
I doubt anyone disagrees on this. See above; this wasn't what I was arguing.
I think the problem here is much more you than me. There is a big problem when you strawman someone three times based only on tone.
Yes, there generally is a big problem when you strawman someone three times (regardless of cause). I doubt it was based only on tone, but now it's been long enough that I don't remember the specifics, and this particular comment I'm responding to doesn't seem to evoke the same subconscious responses.
I especially think this is true since I see nothing in my comment similar to the kind of manipulations that you describe.
There is an injunction against using this as evidence for anything, IIRC. Human brains are "designed" such that they would have this exact reaction either way, before it even enters your stream of consciousness. It is reasonable to be doubtful of such accusations when they happen, though. I don't remember making such an accusation explicitly, but I did imply it despite myself in the grandparent (in my description of how I perceived you subconsciously).
My apologies, I had no intent to point at you with specific accusations of manipulative behavior. I don't see any examples of these kinds of manipulations either. Only statements and phrasings that evoke the feelings that such manipulations evoke, and elicit (at least in me) similar reactions overall.
Today we're announcing a partnership with Castify to bring you Less Wrong content in audio form. Castify gets blog content read by professional readers and delivers it to their subscribers as a podcast so that you can listen to Less Wrong on the go. The founders of Castify are big fans of Less Wrong so they're rolling out their beta with some of our content.
To see how many people will use this, we're having the entire Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions core sequence read and recorded. We thought listening to it would be a great way for new readers to get caught up and for others to check out the quality of Castify's work. We will be adding more Less Wrong content based on community feedback, so let us know which content you'd like to see more of in the comments.