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The Return of Free Internet
valdean writes "Remember the days of ad-supported dial-up Internet access from the likes of Netzero and Altavista Free Access? Those days, and the business model that supplied them, are long gone... or perhaps not. A new effort is being explored by California-based FreeFi Networks. Last week, the company launched what will be a nationwide network of ad-supported wi-fi hotspots. Ads will appear in what FreeFi calls a "narrow, persistent band of content" across the bottom of the user's screen. To provide incentive to America's coffee shops, they'll share advertising revenues with the hosting venue. Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?"
I pay via my phone company and ISP - I'm not paying any more once I'm online. But I don't look at adverts - it's AdBlock all the way.
I'm surfing _right now_ on an open connection in the next apartment building.
/.'ers are aware of the free internet around them.
In the past year, when on the road, It's never taken more than a few minutes of walking / wardriving through a strip mall or retail street to get a connection.
While this service certainly has some value to me as a last resort, I wonder how many non
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
I'm getting the old insulating tape ready to cover the
' narrow, persistent band of content" across the bottom of'
my screen
"Last week, the company launched what will be a nationwide network of ad-supported wi-fi hotspots."
Note: All hotspots will occur exclusively at starbucks coffee shops. Considerations are underway to expand to McDonalds and Walmarts near you!
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
How will it manage to accomplish this? browsing inside of an activeX window? will it proxy everywhere you go with a frame on the bottom of every page ala google images? And if so, how long till this gets cracked?
Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?
Here where I live (EU, Czech Republic), we have had companies offering free access to internet for free for many many years. So your question should be rephrased to "Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived in the US?"
It's not Free if you have to rely on your provider to throttle your bandwidth by flooding you with ads.
I am somehow anxious to see that one has to pay the big bucks to avoid an over-commercial situation.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Pay-to-surf was a British attempt to pay people to watch advertising online - it failed, partly because a lot of users found a way to move the advertising off-screen using virtual desktops
Now we are in the age of pop-up blocking and adblock, a few REGEXP filters and a bit of custom config will probably let a lot of users very easily remove the advertising content... unless, that is, they intend to use a dedicated client instead of open standards for their wifi hotspots, in which case mac and linux laptops probably won't work with it anyway.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Both TFA and the FreeFi site don't mention OS requirements. The FreeFi site has a screenshot of their "toolbar" (the thing with the constant streaming ads) running on XP. What are the chances it'll be available for non-Windows people too?
I think, therefore I am. I think?
We have had telephone network access for about a centutry now.
It has never been free.
Why should Internet access be?
Yet another misguided company that thinks that "The Internet" == "The World-Wide Web".
Yes, it's the New Economy! It wasn't really gone - that downcycle was just part of it. Everything free (supported by ads for other free services, supported by ads for the first free service), buying up blog companies and other things that loads of people use for free, it's The Future! Once more!
The New Economy is really different from the Old Economy - for one thing, companies don't need to make any profits, earnings or even have a business plan, but we knew that already. The other thing is that it leads to a total stock market crash every eight years! It's The Future.
But doesn't that cost insane amounts of money, I hear you ask, investing billions in no-brains companies every few years, losing it all, starting all over "because the VCs must invest in something, or give the money back to investors!"
Yes, but (and you can sing along, as you do know the words) - we'll make it up in volume! Over and over and over again...
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
That's how 'free internet' worked here in Ireland; more correctly called 'no subscription internet' where you were instead charged the cost of a normal local call, and the ISP got a cut for terminating the call. Freeserve in the UK was the first 'free' ISP in Europe following this model I believe, although the market has now swung more towards flat-rate and then broadband.
The problem with the advertising business - as seen with the complaints about TV recording utilities that automatically detect advert breaks, with the widespread use of popup blockers, and the large number of people who completely ignore ads:
Most people don't like adverts.
The companies that pay for the adverts are hoping to get extra custom want more ways to get to the client, and this will likely go forward because of the technology push - BUT the problem with a fixed bar of adverts is that after a few logons you ignore most of what happens in that part of the screen.
Yes, there are people who do find the ads interesting, and will click on them. I currently find TV ads more interesting than most TV, since the advertisers are stretching further and further to catch our attention in zany and wacky ways that make us impressed enough to even think about buying their product; but I don't think that's the norm. People with an agenda will miss the ads, for the greater part; the tie-in with cheaper broadband may be good enough timing that this will work - cost per profit - but I'll be surprised.
Not that I'd complain.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
I'd like to hear their definition of adware.
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?
We have had telephone network access for about a centutry now.
It has never been free.
Why should Internet access be?
We have had television network access for half a century now.
It has always been free (well at least some of it).
Why shouldn't Internet access be?
Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?
Short answer, no.
Any thoughts as to how adoption of city wide government funded wi-fi will play into this? I seem to recall hearing about a few major cities, Philly comes to mind, having done this or at least are in the process of implimentation. I'm wondering how long it'll be before the majority of cities adopt universal wi-fi at the cost to taxpayers making this new service obsolete.
I remember using NetZero before, and I did something (what, exactly, escapes me) where I popped open taskman and hit 'end task' at a specific point during connection -- or something -- which allowed me to have free internet access without any ads. It worked great for fullscreen activities like Diablo 1 and Starcraft (shows you how long ago I was pulling the trick).
The cost of the bandwidth and overheads and so on will be subsidized by advertising costs. These costs are in turn paid for by the customers of the advertisers (*) (meaning the advertisers must charge more for their products than they would otherwise have been able to). This means the customers of the advertisers' products are paying for it, rather directly in fact (although that may seem too abstract for some people to connect the two .. but a percentage of the cost of any product you buy is used to advertise that very product to you .. you are in a sense "buying" the advertising too). There is also going to be some overlap between the two sets of users (advertisers' customers vs 'bandwidth users'), so some will pay for the BW even more directly. But while on an individual level it may be possible to just sit and use the bandwidth 'for free', taken on the average the users are still paying for it. And it doesn't sound like a terribly efficient bandwidth payment model to me - paying an ISP directly is probably more economically efficient for providing the same service, which may make this "devolution" in a sense, or perhaps just "divergence" as there is now a choice between models to the consumer.
And although you may think that you're purely snarfing free bandwidth and that the ads have no effect on you, unless you physically block the ads or take note of the places advertised and deliberately avoid them, those ads are absorbed by your brain in one way or another, and will increase brand recognition and brand identity no matter what you do, making you statistically more likely to buy those products. An interesting question is whether or not this is a more effective (and thus economically efficient) advertising medium than other advertising media. If it turns out to be less effecient, it means the advertisers have to pay more to get the same return, which is perhaps a step backwards.
My own theory is that ultimately we never get anything for free because over the course of your life it all averages out: Some level of cross-subsidisation is everywhere (e.g. IE isn't "free" because those who buy Windows pay for it; "free pizza delivery" is effectively subsidised by walk-in customers in the form of slightly higher prices to cover the delivery costs, etc.) For every product you get for "free", on average there is another occasion where you end up subsidising someone else's "free" product (usually without even knowing), so it all cancels out in the end.
(*) Just to pre-empt anyone counter-arguing that investor funding may be used: True, but investors still expect returns, and investor returns generally come from customers or more investments.