I was just reading an article speculating that the era of everything being free on the ‘net might be ending. Record companies can’t make a living because everyone is downloading for free. Television networks are trying to figure out how to make money from free tv on the ‘net. Why have cable for tv when you can get tv from your net connection? Newspapers are folding because everyone (including them) posts their content for free. Why subscribe to the NY Times when you can read it for free on the ‘net? Travel agents? Booking trips is freebie online. Etc. Etc.
But. Nobody’s making money, and sooner rather than later says this article, things will have to change. YouTube loses millions of dollars a month. Facebook? Ditto. MySpace. Please. And don’t even start about Twitter. They all lose millions of dollars monthly. Ads don’t even come close to paying for the costs of these sites. The only sites that make money are the ones that charge for something. Not necessarily everything. They give content away, but charge for the premium stuff. Like the Wall Street Journal or CraigsList. Yeah, that’s me, like the Wall Street Journal.
Anyway, all the lessons and quizzes and handouts are still available on my various web sites, but I’m going to start charging for the “premium content,” like my CPS databases. The tips and tricks and questions and suchlike are still free, but if you want the answers or print-friendly versions, you’ll have to pay.
Wow, that sort of sounds weird. I guess we’ll see how it goes. Check it out:
