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The end of the free lunch - again

economist.com

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Re: The end of the free lunch - again

#11

Post by dbul »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #10

I keep reading these articles, but I'm still making a free website. In my estimation, the big internet sites serve everyone, not just the chosen few with money. And I want to build a big internet site. So it must be free.

Building a big Internet site and providing the service for free is great. It isn't impossible to do that and be successful. But why not have services that users pay for in addition to the free content? Surely there are some services where users who are getting what they need for free wouldn't be concerned with and likewise there are people who are willing to pay for "something more."

Re: The end of the free lunch - again

#12

Post by ewjordan »

With all the talk of advertising "crashing" (I've heard a lot of these claims lately), I'd really like to see some numbers to back it all up and prove the point.

Are advertising revenues down significantly more than, say, the Dow average? Because otherwise I would have a real hard time agreeing with the assessment that another advertising bubble is popping...

The problem with a switch to paid content is, of course, that it makes very little sense to assume that the customers that you want to pay you or what they're used to getting for free are any better off financially than you are, or any more willing to pay for the content than advertisers are willing to pay for eyeballs.

However "unproven" the advertising business model on the web may be, the user-pays-for-content model has even fewer success stories - I'm getting a little tired of people claiming that it's the clear way of the future when just about nobody has made it work yet.

Re: The end of the free lunch - again

#14

Post by jimbokun »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #10

I keep reading these articles, but I'm still making a free website. In my estimation, the big internet sites serve everyone, not just the chosen few with money. And I want to build a big internet site. So it must be free.

Why do you want to build a big internet site?

Re: The end of the free lunch - again

#15

Post by metalacorn »

from what i am reading it seems you can either be 'free' or 'not-free'. in my opinion there is nothing wrong with free, it's doing 'free' for ever that I think brings about the contention. giving stuff away for free catalyzes a conversation with the consumer that you might not have had in the first place if you had charged. This falls in line with the article discussed in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=523616.

Given these numerous interactions with your free product - build a perfect product and know that it is exactly what people are looking for. Make that 'not-free'.

Re: The end of the free lunch - again

#16

Post by karl11 »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #2

What worries me about this trend is that I don't think the free lunch can end without websites/services getting in bed with the ISPs. Having to deal with hundreds of subscriptions to websites/services is just not going to fly with your average consumer. I highly suspect what will happen is that your ISP will negotiate with websites/services and offer up bundled tiered Internet packages like they do with cable TV. Sho…

This already happens with ESPN 360. I can access it on campus, but can't when I walk home to my Time Warner connection, apparently because Time Warner has not negotiated with ESPN to provide it.
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