[ilamont]

There are several reasons why I use it:

- I can post papers or other documents that other people might value but not otherwise be available, such as court docs, academic papers, etc.

- I can embed the documents easily in my blogs (and before at the publication I worked at)

- I don't have to worry about hosting. I could easily upload the PDFs to the Web server my school grants me, but after I graduate, it's gone, and I have to find another solution and change the links.

[acqq]

Post "papers of other documents": You can upload them on your free web account (like, Google Sites)? Unless you don't have the right to distribute the documents, they will remain there.

Embed: Who really needs embedded PDF? What for? To have it harder to read? Just give me the plain link, thank you.

Hosting: See the first paragraph.

OK, anybody knows some better reason?

[Andrew_Quentin]

The best reason is really so that people who are not that computer literate, that is most people, like a student who does not know much about computers, but has a file that he owns to share, he can put it on there.

If someone is literate sufficiently with the internet to know how easy is to get hosting, and how cheap, then really there is no reason.

[njharman]

This is the fundemental fail of scibd and why ive written them off from the start.

their value depends on users being ignorant.

[acqq]

Actually a lot of very successful products bet on users being lazy, and a lot of very profitable industries intentionally keep the customers as ignorant as possible.

Both assumptions are common and valid business strategies.

[jasonlotito]

> You can upload them on your free web account (like, Google Sites)?

To be fair, that's what he did at the time. This account also had some added features he valued.

[acqq]

I see jasonlotito, you write about the main article author. As far as I understood, he tried to use the free university hosting but it was for him "cumbersome" to upload there and to follow the stats. His added values were only easier upload and easier following of the number of "reads."

Note however that he does "self publishing" experiment. Enough readers here would be able to make him one click upload script in less than 10 minutes. Ditto for parsing the logs. I don't feel sorry for him for choosing scribd and feeling how he feels now.

[jasonlotito]

He was also concerned that after leaving the university, they would take down the docs, and the links to them would then be broken.

I'm just wondering how the suggestion to use Google Sites or another free service is any different then using Scribd?

[acqq]

Google Sites won't forbid you the access once you're not on your university.

For case of stopping providing the services, take as the example Geocites -- it took a decade for them to stop hosting, and the only victim were the long forgotten and deserted pages. On another side, there is still content I uploaded on Tripod at least ten years ago, for which I forgot my passwords years ago.

If years of free hosting are not enough for you, then you have to pay for the hosting and have a bit more control. But even the hosting site to which you pay can go out of business. Nothing is forever, you just have to maintain your online content if you want to have control over it.

I'm still curious to learn about the advantages of scibd. I admit I don't know why most users use it.

With enough ideas or usage scenarios, maybe somebody will make something better!

[jasonlotito]

First, the advantages for people were already described. Scribd provided them with things that they found valuable. You dismissed these things because they weren't valuable for you. When you say:

> I'm still curious to learn about the advantages of scibd.

You really mean "I'm still curious to learn about the advantages of scibd for me." If you meant what you originally said, your being purposefully obtuse.

Indeed, in rereading you original comment, you were simply dismissive, and all the alternatives you provided lacked the specific feature sets he was looking for.

> With enough ideas or usage scenarios, maybe somebody will make something better!

Yeah, another document host. Scribd2.