Disintermediation Pains

A while ago, my wife and I got a phone message that, after we followed up, turned out to be a scam. A caller claimed to be with the Los Angeles County Sheriff, and he said I'd missed a jury duty summons and was going to have to turn up at the courthouse to pay a fine. We called back, although we were suspicious. The guy was a bad enough actor that I finally asked if there was some way I could verify he was actually a deputy -- at that point, he hung up the phone. I got on the web and found out, right down to the name he was using, that this was a scam. I guess the guy figured once I wanted to verify, there was no use wasting any more of his time.

So I was thinking about my e-mail exchange with David Popp. As I say, I'd e-mailed him and the general MR letters address several times complaining about how I didn't see what I was getting for my money with Model Railroader Video Plus. (1) Charlie Conway, a contributor, had gotten into the habit of turning the camera over to his 15-year-old daughter, who would wobble the camera, drop it, or whatever, giggling. Once or twice, well, OK, but this wasn't cute after half dozen times. I asked why we paid for this on MRVP when we could get it for free on YouTube. Nobody answered, but Conway's daughter stopped appearing on his pieces.

(2) I complained when they started putting features that we thought we were paying for into the "free video" category that anyone could see. Popp answered this time, saying they decided this would be a good way to bring in new subscribers. He said they used to open the whole site up for a weekend once or twice a year to encourage people to subscribe, but that didn't work. He gave me his office e-mail and said to write him directly with any other concerns, because they cared what every subscriber thought. Well, OK.

(3) On Monday I sent the e-mail I quoted yesterday and got back his reply, which I also printed. Interestingly, I had raised again the question of why we should pay for stuff we can get for free on YouTube. This time, he didn't say anything about caring what every subscriber thinks -- he just said straight out that if I didn't want to pay for free stuff, I should cancel my sub, and this struck me as a very logical suggestion. Not much different from the scammer who decided not to waste his time scamming me if I was asking the wrong questions, the way I see it.

I'm beginning to think MR and MRVP are beginning to face a real problem that you can get a lot of stuff on the web for free, and you don't need an editor -- especially one who doesn't want to work too hard, apparently -- to put it together for you. I'd pay a few bucks a month for exclusive, quality professional videos, but MRVP wasn't providing that product. I can subscribe to dozens of good model railroad video channels on YouTube for free, and they'll often be as good as anything on MRVP.

It's called disintermediation. I don't give MRVP a whole lot more time.