Below is my response to comments posted against above blog post
I am struggling to understand why people seems to be against Scribd so much. Given Scribd’s popularity, I can only assume these comments are from the minority.
Scribd opened the document publishing, distribution and interactivity market, and for that reason alone, we should all be thanking them. No one is forcing anyone to use Scribd. We all have the choice to use or not to use. The level of criticism here is uncalled for.
They have used various tactics to gain the level of success they are demonstrating today. Yes, some of us, will never use those tactics, but end of the day, it is business.
Personally, I was surprised at the commercial route Scribd took by going after Amazon.com’s market. This is something we also thought about at early stages, but decided against it due to our own reasoning.
Our mission is about making documents work harder for your business. Even for us, it took such a long time to come up with a viable commercial model.
There are two camps in web 2.0 arena. Those who build a great product and work out a commercial model after few years of collecting users. Other model is the old model, which is to generate revenues. First model requires significant VC funding, and that is exactly what Scribd has done.
In my opinion, Scribd is in a great place where they can almost pick couple of commercial models to follow.
I for one, is keen to see Scribd grow from strength to strength. Competition will only help the customers – so be thankful instead of complaining.