Quote from: cthoman on October 22, 2013, 13:38

Wow! Minuses on that post. I guess nobody else has tried to use the site and been totally frustrated. I know the woman on the homepage isn't responsible, but her smiling at my misery doesn't help matters.

I think that people outside of the argument probably miss the complexities of the issues.

First of all - many people probably do not realise that one of the major issues over the past days has been around how poorly the site was implemented - despite the huge amount of money spent on it. It was not capable of handling the traffic and the people put up to talk about that clearly did not have a clue.

Secondly - there is a tendency to see any criticism of Obamacare as if it were a criticism of universal healthcare in general. In truth many people are critical of Obamacare because they see it as a dreadful compromise which will end up best serving the insurance and pharmaceutical industries - and therefore ultimately the finance sector.

When healthcare is paid for by insurance there is a tendency for the price of  pharmaceuticals and treatments in general to increase. Which ultimately pushes up the price of policies. A vicious circle.

Imagine what governments internationally could do in terms of providing universal healthcare if they were to slash their military spending.

Does anyone really think that a website could be created to serve the needs of 300M people instantly and expect it to work perfectly from Day 1?

I can't find it on a stock agency, but certainly it's all over the web.
Interesting unforeseen consequence, that image has been lifted and used on hundreds of websites, so if it was a stock photo, that usage would probably prevent it from being used again in the US. So one RF sale could kill a stock photo dead in (at least) one market.
It may not be an issue in this case, but it is a point to ponder. "The photo that became too well known to sell".

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 22, 2013, 16:11

Quote from: ShadySue on October 22, 2013, 09:30

I can't find it on a stock agency, but certainly it's all over the web.
Interesting unforeseen consequence, that image has been lifted and used on hundreds of websites, so if it was a stock photo, that usage would probably prevent it from being used again in the US. So one RF sale could kill a stock photo dead in (at least) one market.
It may not be an issue in this case, but it is a point to ponder. "The photo that became too well known to sell".

How do you know it was an RF sale? It might be RM. I've had the Daily Mail run some of my RM images and they are immediately lifted in the Far East and reproduced all over the internet. Getting on the DM website seems to be one of the worst things that can happen to an image (though the pay is reasonable).

I didn't say it was an RF sale. I said I couldn't find it via Google Reverse images. I highlighted the word 'if'. Indeed, I have had Telegraph RM sales reproduced instantly in Far Eastern sites.
My point was that it's something I haven't seen discussed here before that one use could kill a file stone dead, but of course that's nothing to the possible backlash on the girl. There are a lot of eejits about. I don't know how it is in the US, but in the UK, she'd probably get a batch of paps parked day and night outside her home until the Next Big Thing.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 22, 2013, 18:11

over-exposure could be deadly.

Slightly off topic -- I used a model several years ago, that appeared as one of the first "happy" guys on a Viagra ad, he said that although the exposure (no pun intended) was huge (still no pun intended), he had a hard (oops, but no pun here either)  getting work after the commercial went live.

Quote from: ShadySue on October 22, 2013, 09:30

I can't find it on a stock agency, but certainly it's all over the web.
Interesting unforeseen consequence, that image has been lifted and used on hundreds of websites, so if it was a stock photo, that usage would probably prevent it from being used again in the US. So one RF sale could kill a stock photo dead in (at least) one market.
It may not be an issue in this case, but it is a point to ponder. "The photo that became too well known to sell".

How do you know it was an RF sale? It might be RM. I've had the Daily Mail run some of my RM images and they are immediately lifted in the Far East and reproduced all over the internet. Getting on the DM website seems to be one of the worst things that can happen to an image (though the pay is reasonable).

This is quite a good one;

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-search-for-the-mysterious-obamacare-website-girl