> Free content entitlement, that’s what. From the beginning the web has been about cutting out middlemen. Sure, everyone still pays for the bytes, but consider how much less it costs, per-viewer, to distribute a paragraph on the web versus printed on paper. Want to communicate quickly and cheaply, without paying for stamps or surcharges for expedited delivery? E-mail. Can't find a publisher willing to take a golden-m…
I don't think that is quite correct. The Internet doesn't function, at all, without 'middlemen' - you can't send an email without involving a third-party, or even many third-parties sometimes. This message took rather a few middle-men to get to your eyeballs.
What I think is that the Internet expanded as rapidly as it did because it is far, far, far cheaper to be a middleman on the Internet than it is in the physical world. In other words, the capital required to get involved in the Internet is absolutely minor - anyone with a computer can expand the Internet horizon, cheaply and easily, for anyone else they care to share the service with.
Where this collides with the cultural reality that preceded the Internet (and this hot mix is still in states of turbulence) is that there was, previously, a huge liability proposition to handling other peoples' stuff for them. Capitalism depended on this liability in order to function (dialectic materialism) but yet we don't have such huge liabilities with the Internet. If someone drops your packet, chances are, someone else will forward it for you on the next, ultra-cheap, try.
So what I think is happening with the current state of the war for paying consumers is that we are swinging back and forth between points of supposed plenty and imposed rarity. Somewhere in that hot mix is the sweet spot where people are happy to pay for content that they're also happy to share freely...