Scribd
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Scribd Inc. is a digital document library founded in 2007 by Jared Friedman, Trip Adler, and Tikhon Bernstam. It owns 3 of the biggest and oldest file and document hosting platforms on the internet: Scribd for documents, SlideShare and Everand.[1]
| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2007 |
| Legal Structure | Private |
| Industry | Cloud |
| Also known as | |
| Official website | https://www.scribd.com |
Incidents
editTrial period
editScribd gatekeeps documents uploaded by their users, which Scribd does not own and did not create, behind a login wall.
Behind that login wall, they push their free trial which requires a credit card in order for a user to download. While they do offer an alternative of uploading 5 documents for a user to download their desired document for free, A) most users are there to download documents, the ratio of uploaders to downloaders is always going to be few-many and B) this option is written in small text and placed at the bottom of the page, implying Scribd's main goal is to push their free trial.
This is a classic predatory "get your credit card details and hope you forget to cancel so they can charge you" scheme.