Spreading some click-love… The future of free web
By Angsuman Chakraborty, Gaea News NetworkTuesday, February 1, 2005
In the long run I question the validity of the revenue model where you rely on visitors benevolence for meeting your financial needs. I realize fully well that certain popular sites are making tons of money using Google AdWords. However that is only for a handful of sites.
ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOWI foresee a prevalence of paid-for-content-web where you pay a monthly fee to acess a large list of sites (maybe similar like news or technology related) and the revenue is divided among them based on your usage with probably some additional revenue for the first site which caused the customer to sign-up. We know a similar model is already adopted in a parallel industry conducted over the web.
How long can people provide content for free? Let the initial euphoria die-down and the dusts settle, I am sure we will transition to a more mature web with better content and less garbage and yes it wouldn’t be free.
The same should happen for open source software. The higher quality software creators would realize the potential they have and decide to move to commercial setting. MySQL, JBoss (don’t rant about the quality, this is just an example) , RedHat are examples of the things to come.
Richard Stallman, I think your socialist dream of free-software-for-all is coming to an end in maybe another 5-10 years at most, possibly earlier. There would still be free software but it will be few and far between.
What are your thoughts?
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January 31, 2010: 2:24 am
You may be too enthusiastic over this dichotomy of “free web” or “pay web.” As the current economy — which has, remember, been bogus since its inception — continues to collapse, we may hope to see some hybrid system develop. Currently, most “official news” sources are hardly worth paying for. And except for the few big names (MS, Adobe etc.) proprietary software is for the birds compared to the best freeware or Open Source. It would certainly be great if all those who are now doing such wonderful work for nothing could earn their living by their efforts, but how can that happen in the economic system now in place, where everything is focused upon “competition” and “winners.” Nothing wrong with winning, only in thinking that zero sum game, you know |
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March 14, 2005: 6:35 am
[...] uture of free web (take 2) in software and content I had posted previously that the free web has to move towards a paid-for-content web model. [...] |
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March 14, 2005: 5:58 am
Interactive or not I think by and large the free web model has to end. It may still exist for niches like people posting content for love like Doug or some sites sustaining on interactive and relevant ads as Steven mentions. However this cannot work for the masses. The market is much too small to sustain the current industry. |
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February 6, 2005: 8:45 am
Having worked for sites that relied heavily on advertising dollars to keep running, I know that in the past it has been really difficult to get advertisers to buy into web advertising in the past. However, there has been a shift lately where companies are moving away from traditional media, TV and Radio and putting their money into interactive ads on some of the larger websites out there. I think you’ll see more of this in the future, but it has to be for interactive ads where the user can directly be involved in the experience. |
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February 1, 2005: 5:50 pm
Doug, Sure, there will always be sites to subject readers to their viewpoint or to propagate their viewpoints. However I think they will cease over time to dominate the web contents as it is today. How long do you think Newspapers like NYT will post contents for free? Soon they will provide teasers only and request you to subscribe to get the full contents. In fact many do it even today. Now instead of purchasing NYT, Washington Post and tons of other newspaper subscriptions, wouldn’t you prefer to buy a single subscription and get seamless access to all these news sites? Not everything should be or will be a money making operation. There are always projects of love and passion. What are your thoughts on the macro scale of things? |
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February 1, 2005: 5:37 am
I agree about the questionable ethics of encouraging readers to click advertising links for products that they don’t have any interest in. That’s just being greedy. As for no-charge Web content: there will always be people like me who don’t see the need to turn everything into a money-making operation. My own website exists for the purpose of giving me a personal soapbox. It is enough that I subject my readers to my viewpoints; I would never demean my readers by also subjecting them to advertising. |
Leif Oldhart