Some Rants b4 proceeding to my main post today..

Arrgh.. guess wat i received in my Yahoo mail today after getting back home..

This stupid email from Straits Times Interactive.. (My reactions in blue) -->

Dear STi Reader,

You are getting this email from the ST Interactive team as you are among the more than 280,000 of our registered users.
Woah u have so many registered users ah.. why r u telling me this? Did i win some lucky draw or smt?
We thank you for your interest in the website
U r welcome.. :P i have no print version here so read yer online version loh...
and would like to inform you about a major change coming to STI in March: After 10 years of giving ST news reports out for free online, STI will begin charging readers to access it.
WHAT!?!??! &^%&(*^$
A subscription will cost S$72 for six months (S$12 a month), or S$120 for a year (S$10 a month). A one-month subscription will cost S$15.
WHAT??!?! So Ex!!.. WHY?!?! &^%*$#@ i m only a poor student leh..
Why are we doing this?
YES WHY... TELL ME WHY... it better be a good explanation!
We believe that we have a good and valuable product that users will want to pay for. It's also not a tenable business model to charge for the print edition of the newspaper and not for its online edition.
DIAONZ!!.. yes.. STI online version is a good n convenient read but in no way will i pay for it loh.. charging for news that i can get anyway else such as www.cnn.com or http://www.bbc.co.uk .... to tink that u (Singapore Press Holdings) finally gave up on yer ambitious but money losing venture in Mediaworks.. u will have more $$$ to yourself.. now u even wanna suck more money from us readers!! wat is NEXT? charging money for TV news?
i bet yer next move will be to increase the costs of your printed newspapers.. why isnt a tenable bizness model!??!.. if other newspapers can do it, why cant u? why cant u just depend on the advertising revenue u get as a result of readers accessing yer website n advertisers placing ads there.. i seriously dont mind any increase in banners mah..
You will want to know whether you will get anything more, now that you have to pay.The answer is yes.
NO!! I dont want to pay n i dont want to get anything more!! i just want an online newspaper where i can get my daily updates abt news at home!!! this is abt the only thing i cant get from BBC n CNN.. n u money suckers r taking it away from me!!
You will notice that up till now, you get only three reports from Life! and Sunday Life through the week. If you subscribe, all the showbiz gossip and lifestyle features you see in the print edition of Life will be available online.The weekly tech magazine Digital Life is available online now but a day after its print edition goes out with the newspaper. If you subscribe, Digital Life and the health magazine Mind Your Body -- now not online -- will become available from 6am on the same day they are distributed with the newspaper. The fashion magazine Urban will also go online, but later this year.All news reports in the Money section will be available from 6am daily, instead of 6pm.The last perk is that the archive will grow from the current three-days to seven-days. This means you can search back a week's worth of STI editions.The above extras are what you will get if you take up a subscription, in addition to what STI currently offers -- ST print edition news, current day breaking news, webspecials and photo features.
Blah blah blah.. i dont care abt these features.. if i want them, i would buy the printed version!!.. i just want the NEWS, home n overseas!!.. n nothing more!!!.. u $$ faced ppl..
To give you a taste of what you will get in the bumped-up STI, the website will be accessible free to registered readers like yourself for two weeks from March 1 till 14.You have these two weeks to browse and sign up.
I m gonna BOYCOTT U!!
Since you are already a registered reader, you will NOT need to fill in your details again. We already have them. You will only need to indicate that you want to take up a subscription and provide your credit card details.
So thats the reason why u wanted us to subscribe to yer online version few mths ago.. n got a massive screw-up with yer website being unable to handle the massive traffic of subscriptions for the first 4 days.. n have to allow us to access the News without subscribing.. so u have already conspired to take ur $$ in the end!! trying to mislead us then by saying its free to subscribe n stuff like that.. yer ultimate motive is to get our email address so that u can send us this STUPID email eventually..
From March 15 onwards, the site will become a subscribers-only website. Your subscription will take effect in April.
Arrrghh.. i hate Straits Times!!.. http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/
STI also has group subscription rates for institutions and companies. The larger the number of users in the group, the deeper the subscription discount. Do call (65) 6388-3838 or email stics@sph.com.sg for these rates.
The larger the number of paying users, the money u get.. is that wat u wanna mean??!!?
We hope you will stay with us. STI aims to continue being your link to news on Singapore, the region and the world.
No Way M i gonna stay with U.. u $$ faced idiots!!.. how r u gonna be my link to news on Singapore.. when all u can tink abt is how to suck us dry of our money!!?!?