I keep reading about how the death of the \”Free Web\”is upon us. CNET said \”The idealistic dream of a digital Camelot where everything is free is giving way to cold fiscal reality\”. While this may be true for some sites, those burning through millions of investors dollars, the free web is far from dead, or even close to dying. The web is mostly free and it will continue to be in the foreseeable future.
Much More….
I keep reading about how the death of the \”Free Web\”is upon us. CNET said \”The idealistic dream of a digital Camelot where everything is free is giving way to cold fiscal reality\”. While this may be true for some sites, those burning through millions of investors dollars, the free web is far from dead, or even close to dying. The web is mostly free and it will continue to be in the foreseeable future.
Much More….
The idea that dot.com corporations could spend tens of millions of dollars, and remain indefinitely free was, of course, naïve. The web was (and still is) new, and we had to learn the hard way. The irrational exuberance of the dot.coms and Wall Street created a modern day myth that said growth of site traffic would somehow turn into profits. Quite quickly investors and Wall Street realized this wasn’t the case, and pulled the plug on the VC IV (Venture Capitol Inter-Vienous Money).
This means the death of some free things, but so what? So what if I can’t get online service at freeInternet.com any more, or get a free computer from free-pc.com or make a phone call at callfreeway.com. How many people actually did that in the first place? Big deal, pictures at Snapfish now cost $1.99 a roll, so what if voicemail at uReach is $2.99 a month. No more free shipping from Outpost or Kozmo. So what if a year from now I’m paying $30 a year to read Salon, The Wall Street Journal costs me 5 times that much. That doesn’t make the web less free. The list of good sites that have always been and will always be free is about a google long.
Now that the dot.com pioneers are rushing to find ways to get people to pay for something they gave away for free for the past few years, we’ll see just how smart they really are. Of course, the current rush to charge was caused by the big bust in the online advertising market, which is a story in and of itself. So now what if Yahoo, and Salon start charging for access like the QSJ does?
Which finally leads me to my point. I can go to Iwon.com and Dmoz, I don’t need to pay for Yahoo. I can go to CNBC, CNNFN and Quote.com I don’t need to pay for The Wall Street Journal. The low barriers to entry on the Web allow any one and everyone to put up a site quickly and easily. Someone makes me pay for something, and someone else quickly starts up a new site and offers that for free.
While it’s true the price on any product or service should reflect its value, the web fights against this notion with instant replication of almost any service offered on the web. People quickly run away when things that were once free, turn to pay per use. When Yahoo began charging for auction listing fees, people jumped ship like it was on fire. Now any smart person, already skeptical of my story, would say, “OK smart guy, where’d they go?”. The answer, well, I’m not sure. My guess is many of them gave up. Most of the stuff Yahoo had listed was crap, and people just gave up on trying to sell their old tennis shoes. Most of them probably ran to eBay.
People (and I can only speak of Americans, which of course includes Canadians) have been bombarded with ads that teach them to forget about brand and focus on price as the primary factor in any decision. TV taught me WalMart has low prices, not that Hugo Boss has the beset quality suits. TV taught me the new Ford Explorer has a new low rice and .9% financing, not that it’s well built and won’t flip over and throw me out the sunroof. Similarly the web has taught us everything is free. No one over the age of 8 will unlearn that, EVER. Web = Free, it’s just how people think.
So what it comes down to is one simple question. What will Web surfers pay for online?
We know they’ll pay for the Wall Street Journal, eBay, and naked people. They may pay for the NY Times, Yahoo, and Salon. People will only pay for things that offer something totally unique, something very important to them, or something that will pay them back. Oh, and of course naked people. Things like free computers, and free ISP’s were an idea whose time has come and gone (though may come again some day).
Parts of what we have all expected to be free will no longer be free. That much I won’t argue with. But to say the free ride is over on the web is just nonsense. The barriers to entry are still too low. The type of people the web attracts are risk takers, willing to try again where others have failed, willing to give something away to attract attention. In the end, we all keep our free web, and the VC’s that started the hype get to keep most of their money.
So what could prove me wrong?
Dot.net, the new plan from Microsoft that will effectively place all participating sites under the control of Microsoft. They’ll only give it away to crush the competition.
A new report released this week by research firm Jupiter Media Metrix that says 14 companies controlled 60 percent of user minutes as of March 2001, down from 40 companies in March 2000, and 110 in March 1999. As people spend more and more of their time at fewer and fewer sites, people may not be motivated to start their own.
An increase in the barriers to entry. Maybe from taxes, regulation or corporate greed.
About a billion other things I don\’t see coming.
Recent Comments