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Now How Much Would You Pay? (For Yahoo!)
LHOOQtius_ov_Borg writes: "A CNet article discusses Yahoo! considering more subscription-fee based premium services. The article points out that other sites, such as TheStreet.Com, have not had success with this. It also mentions that Yahoo has stated that less than 10% of their current revenue comes from 'pure play' Internet companies and 'financially questionable' advertisers.'" Added to which, ABetterRoss writes, "Submitting to some Yahoo categories is no longer free. from the FAQ: "In our ongoing effort to 1) build a useful, comprehensive Web directory and 2) address the needs of people submitting sites to the directory, we have expanded our fee-based Business Express program to cover all submissions to our main commercial categories: 'Business and Economy/Business to Business' and 'Business and Economy/Shopping and Services.'"
Yup, why go to a plumbing store when you can go to a pipe store, a T-fitting store, a faucet store, etc.? Face it, aggregation, whether products or information, can be extremely useful. Aggregation is done by "middlemen," and there are useful middlemen, and useless middlemen. As a matter of fact, in the "real world" the more efficent middlemen (e.g. WalMart) are getting increasingly powerful--they are hardly being "gotten rid of"--by their efficiencies in aggregating products and services in a convenient and useful way.
Another example: TV networks (cable or broadcast) aggregate programs from a variety of producers; a minority of programs are actually produced in-house. They run ads and use the proceeds to buy those programs. Some channels (e.g. HBO) charge instead; you can choose not to pay, and still get what the other channels provide. Viacom, for instance, owns both subscriber- and ad-supported channels. I don't see them all of a sudden deciding to make MTV a pay channel, do you?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but TNSTAAFL. (There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.) Aggregation has value, but it also has costs. The latter are going to get passed to you one way (advertising) or another (direct charges). If you don't find that service worth the price, go without or create your own.
There are several conflicting ancient economic rules that come into play with the internet. Rules that must be revised to work to the economic benefit of all.
:). If I end up posting ads for yahoo.com, all we ever do is trade the same money back and forth. Until the ads make it to a website that brings in a significant amount of its revenue from the wallets of its viewers, there is no money in the internet economy.
:) But if content could be transfered a minimum amount of hops, the cost for that content will drop significantly, as well as increasing the speed by which everyone can access it.
:)
First of all, we have the issue of free service. Everyone who browses the internet expects to do so for free or for a single low flat rate for their isp. They have come to expect this, and I doubt the internet would have taken off if they were charged for every website they wanted to view. I don't want to pay for my information.
To offer this information, it will cost somebody at least something. At the lower end, the isp of the provider can provide a low volume website, but the cost of providing the information will increase with its popularity and size. Information wants to be free, but not for those who provide it.
There has to be a constant, scalable source of revenue to cover the cost of providing the information or service. There are two major possibilities here. Sell the eyeballs of your viewers, or charge the viewers to view the information.
Advertising on the internet might work or it might not. There's a catch 22 in play here. Until the massive bulk of consumers use the internet, ads won't be as lucrative a source of revenue as advertising on the radio or TV are since a lot more people spend a lot more time watching TV then they do on the internet. And even those who DO spend a lot of time on the internet do so engaged in activities that do not subject them to a steady stream of advertising.
The biggest problem with advertising is the fact that while more and more of the people in the world are going online, the original core group of users were of a slightly different breed. The type, for all practical purposes, who don't pay much attention to ads, and spend as much time as possible trying to avoid having to view them at all (Junkbuster and the like come into play here).
On the internet advertising is also subjected to a recursive downward spiral where you end up advertising pages for the sole purpose of selling advertising. When you watch a commercial on TV, they're usually selling a meatspace product. They're not trying to sell you on another service for the sole purpose of throwing advertising on you. The obvious exception to this is when they advertise previews to upcoming shows, but self promotion is always a valid exception. Most TV networks don't make a point of advertising shows on other networks.
On the internet, I might run a website that gains 100% of its revenue from advertising. How will I bring users to my website? I might sell an ad on yahoo since I know there's a big potential audience there. Yahoo of course, gains most, if not all, of their revenue from advertising (at least until now
What this means is, E-commerce is essential for the survival of the internet as it is currently constructed. However, what if I want to provide information to the world at large and not have to pester my viewers with ads, but at the same time, not charge them any money?
This brings up a second point. Information that I serve is mine. I provide it to the world, but *I* want to be the one serving it so I get credit for it. AT least, this is the general perception. However, I can't afford any more than a dsl line without some type of revenue stream. Bandwidth gets cheaper the closer to the backbone you get, but you have to be able to purchase a LOT of bandwidth to get it that cheap.
However, say there was a bandwidth repository between me and the backbone, like at my isp. A huge cache for all of the websites and other files that transfer between the customer websites and viewers on the other end. Whenever a single static file is transfered more than a few times, the cache will pick it up and save it. From that point on, any incoming requests will stop at the isp and be served from the cache instead. If a site is extremely popular, the isp, with its much cheaper, much larger link to the internet will be the one serving all the content and the puny link to the actual website will only be used for initial transfers. Of course, keeping just one level of cache would be inefficient. If a site is REALLY popular, then it could be bumped even closer to the backbone and get served from that point. It could also work in the other direction. If a large number of people on a network access a specific website, then a local cache could store the website data locally to serve to the local users, since its much cheaper to transfer data on a local network than over the internet. This is the biggest issue with napster and college campuses. Its an order of magnitude cheaper to install more bandwidth on campus than it is to utilize the internet feed. If napster only traded files amongst users on the local network and then only went out to the internet if the requested file couldn't be found on any of the 10,000+ local systems.
However, intellectual property laws come into play here. I don't want anyone mirroring my information because I can't sell banner ads to distribute it. Of course, I can't sell banner ads anyway, but thats not really the point. This mentality ends up stalling the whole process.
Yes, I know this wouldn't work for dynamic pages. however, try something. Pick a website, especially an extremely flashy one. Point wget at it and download all the content on the main page. Then do something to form a dynamic change and repeat the process. How much of the data has actually changed? Webpage code itself is relatively small compared to the size of the images, java applets, and banner ads.
This will increase the base cost to the provider of the information or service, as you are now purchasing not only an internet connection, but also cache space. However, as you well know, its much cheaper to purchase something once than to pay for something constantly. In addition, if you can cut down your required bandwidth by 80% because most of your content need not transfer over your expensive pipe and can instead transfer over the pipe of your isp, which only costs them half as much due to their ability to purchase a much larger pipe and get a better data rate for the dollar. Not to mention the fact that the price drops even more the next jump upstream. Its not unreasonable to cut your bandwidth costs down to 10-20% of what would be needed if you served everything from your own system through your own internet feed.
The third issue is that more and more people expect a large quantity of their services to be performed for free or very little. Cell phones are free. There are free computers, free internet access, free long distance. SOMEBODY has to pay for all of this. In the end, its going to be the corporations that end up selling us products and inevitably paying our salaries. Thats how economy works. And if they're going to give away all this stuff for free, they're going to need to have more accurate marketing data so they get a better return on their investment. While I don't feel they should be automatically provided with this information without my permission, I don't feel like its too far out of line to request such information in exchange for an otherwise free product so they can push products my way that I would otherwise be interested in purchasing anyways.
So understand the perspective. We want unlimited privacy, with no intrusion into our lives whatsoever. No cookies, no anonymous tracking, no personal tracking. We don't want any random spam, no targeted advertising (still spam), no banner ads, no targeted banner ads, we want our internet service free or very low cost, with lots of extra services, but nobody calling us to sell us anything. At some point, something is going to have to give. Figure out where you want it to be. Either you're going to have to tell someone that you're a 30 year old male who has an interest in reading about cars, or you're going to have to pay yahoo money so you can do it.
-Restil
(sorry for the extended, pointless rant)
Play with my webcams and lights here
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Yahoo are charging for REVIEWS of sites. Raw additions to their index are (it appears) still being done for free.
In addition, they are charging for reviews of ALL commercial sites that fit into certain categories.
What's the problem here? The same fee is being charged to all businesses. Regardless of the businesses size, the review will be completed within seven days.
Sites that don't go into those categories still get in for free (albeit in a unknown timeframe).
They're being sensible and not charging VISITORS to the sites. How is this different from a TV network?
Given that, I don't know why is everyone so surprised that Yahoo! wants to charge. What I don't understand is, can you really live off sponsors forever? Eventually, I see all these services charging... How else are they supposed to feed those large teams of programmers?
Can you go to the grocery store and get stuff for free? Hell no. I know there's alternatives, as in, you can grow your own veggies (e.g. pot ;-), or visit a non-paying search engine, but eventually, doesn't it boil down to the old adage - "you pay, you play?"
Napster won't wither because of "don't kill the messenger", but sure as f**k we all knew that everyone on there has pirated at least ten songs, if not more. So, how can Napster stand to make any profit just by letting everyone share files? I dont get it.. They have to start charging some measly fee..
I know it isn't nice to take away something that was given for granted (free), but I just cannot comprehend or better yet, visualize, how are these companies supposed to make money unless they start charging? Can you put yourself in their shoes, i.e. it was your company.. Would you settle for no or little money? Would you like to make MORE money and expand? Well, just how are you gonna do that by letting people spread pirated songs and not charging them something for the service and fend off the RIAA with the revenue/profits?
Someone explain to me the basics of capitalism, 'cause I apparently, the C.S. graduate, is clueless ;->.
Thank you.
--
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Obviously it would be inane for Yahoo to start charging to search the web, send email, or do anything else you can already do for free on yahoo and other sites.
What you are probably looking at is broadband content services similar to things shaping up at web music sites such as MP3.com, and Napster, as well as broadband video.
I personally am convinced that people will pay for content if it is quality, and delivered better than what is otherwise freely available - not sure if this pans out with the rest of the users out there or not. We'll see.
I'm sure many people will complain about Yahoo charging money for adding sites to its directory, but here's a better idea than complaining on Slashdot: go to the Open Directory Project and start participating. Be an editor, or just submit links. The better the ODP gets the less often I (and you) will have to go to Yahoo. Even Google partners with the ODP. Shouldn't you?
GeoCities Account: $5
Yahoo! Clubs Account: $25
Being able to search for pr0n by category: $100
Knowing that you can get all that stuff for free at other websites: Priceless.
There are some things that money can't buy. For everything else, there's a Yahoo! CEO who wants to bilk my grandma.