The end of the free lunch – again

The Economist Says reality is reasserting itself once more, with familiar results. The number of companies that can be sustained by revenues from internet advertising turns out to be much smaller than many people thought, and Silicon Valley seems to be entering another “nuclear winter”

March 23, 2009 by Uncategorized 2

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2 Responses

  1. StephenK says:
    March 23, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    Though they preach…
    Economics can be a pesky, annoying thing at times.

    I doubt few will hear the message. In terms of the media realm, advertising is the bread and butter funding things. I doubt any would be okay with going to an NPR/PBS model of funding for everything. Life online is no different.
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  2. opaqueentity says:
    March 24, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Theres a difference between products
    We don’t pay for Wikipedia but we use it for free. That is run on donations from members of the public as well as larger contributors.

    It mentions news and stock prices in the article. I get those from BBC News Online. It’s free to everyone but the people that pay for their TV licence in the UK. So it’s being funded.
    Email? I pay Hotmail for my account so I can be in a coma for months and not lose my account but you can use it for free.
    I read webcomics but don’t pay for them, but they make money out of their merchandising (that I do buy)and donations.

    Some things we already use online are already funding themselves other ways. Advertising works for other products, but if it doesn’t maybe they need to look at it i a different way. And also maybe, just maybe it shouldn’t survive if it can’t fun itself in whatever way. If something is worth paying for you can ask for money, it just shows that really when it comes down to it, some things are actually worthless.

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