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Google/Earthlink Wins San Francisco WiFi Deal
maximander wrote to mention coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle of that city's final decision on their city-wide WiFi system. They've chosen to go with Google and EarthLink. From the article: "In choosing to negotiate with the Google-EarthLink team, the city is going with two Internet giants with marque names. Both firms have deep pockets and proven track records online, but only limited experience building a large wireless network. The project, championed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, is intended to boost the city's technology credentials and help bridge the digital divide between the Internet haves and have-nots. It has also generated intense interest from other cities looking to build similar networks. "
Anyone know when it will be out of beta?
*ducks*
This isn't much of a surprise. Google is a Bay area fixture, and Earthlink has a major focus on providing urban Broadband. The partnership of the two is a natural and will make SF a key example of what more metro areas need to be.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
This will cost about $20 a month (based on there other pricing settings) so I don't really see this doing anything to address the "have and have nots" viz-a-viz the internet and Wifi. It probably won't be good enough to replace your home net connection and for $20 I would think you could get an ok net connection and a cheap rooter so how does it address the problem?
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
The project, championed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, is intended to boost the city's technology credentials and help bridge the digital divide between the Internet haves and have-nots.
The folks sleeping on the streets of the Tenderloin want their WiFi!
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
or political maneuvering from telecos in the California Legislature to put an end to this? I bet they will wait until Google/Earthlink nears completion - then they will try to pull the rug and take over themselves.
"Google, in Mountain View, intends to provide the free, so-called Wi-Fi access. The service it proposes would be faster than dial-up but slower than a typical broadband connection. In its joint bid, Earthlink plans to offer speedier access, but for a fee.
It looks like the entire scheme is a classic "the first dose is free but the good stuff'll cost ya" scheme. That's not necessarily a bad way to go, to implement a public good while preserving competitive incentives.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
I've never seen a bum sitting out on the street with his laptop asking, "Wi-Fi connection? Spare a kilobit? Sir? Sir?" to passersby. Unless Mayor Newsom is handing out $100 laptops to vagrants on the street, I don't know how this bridges the gap between tech haves and have-nots. Any word on plans to provide more than radio waves to the have-nots?
For more information, click here.
It would be good to see one of these city wireless plans finally come to fruition;
Philadelphia has been having a tough time finally getting its own initiative off the ground . . .
http://www.wirelessphiladelphia.org/
I also look forward to seeing evidence that these initiatives are bridging the 'digital divide' in these cities.
From the article... "It remains to be seen whether residents will use the Wi-Fi system as a replacement for their existing wire-based Internet connections. Early fears by the mayor that the telecommunications industry would fight against the project by filing lawsuits have yet to materialize." As we've seen with people willing to pay extra for the faster speeds of Cable over DSL, I doubt many people will use it as a replacement for broadband. You can also think about how many people use NetZero's free dialup server instead of paying for another dialup provider such as Earthlink. I guess time will tell though on what affect it has on competitors.
I agree, but with some thoughts.
I'm anarcho-capitalist, so I firmly believe that no government is the best form of government that can exist. That being said, I am more against Federal and State governments taking charge for providing services for people, since it is much harder to vote with my feet and exit the bad services (and their costs).
Yet I also believe that individuals do have a right to select a government within small groups. San Fran is a large city, but I wouldn't live there myself. I think that if the citizens of a town really want to finance this boondoggle (it isn't being provided freely by Earthlink and Google right?), let them do it.
I wouldn't live in a town with free WiFi. I live in a TINY village 1 hour from Milwaukee and Chicago each. We have 3 cheap WiFi providers in the area (very cheap), we have DSL and we have Cable, and now we have 2 more wired providers who are testing the waters. I see no reason to give free access on the taxpayer's backs.
I do share my WiFi access point with my neighbors (only one would be considered "not middle class.") as long as they give me their MAC address to filter in. I see no reason why San Fran should be any different -- if you want the poor to have access, pay for your own access and give them access to your router or AP.
From TFA this deal will cost SF $0. Google and Earthlink will build the network and recoup costs through advertising (Google) and fees (Earthlink). In fact the city will make money by leasing city property for hardware to perch on. I agree in general that "we the parents demand 10% of the state budget go to education under all circumstances" type ballot measures are largely responsible for the fiscal mess in CA. In this case, however, it would appear to be a win-win-lose type situation (for Google/Earthlink - The People - The crappy cable companies)
From the first sentence:
(emphasis mine).
Further down in the article:
Google gives free wifi, or you can upgrade the service by paying Earthlink $20/month or so (hasn't been set) if you want a faster connection.
There's no excuse for not even reading the first sentence of an article that isn't slashdotted. That includes moderators.
Chances are that no one will read this because I am languishing in Bad Karma Hell, but just wondering... why provide this great free WiFi in the name of the poor? Did someone miss the fact that you need a computer to get on the net? City wide WiFi is a great idea and all... but it helps the middle class more than anyone. Unless you bundle it with some kind of computer giveaway or those fabled $100 laptops, it's not going to be the 'great internet equalizer' or lead to any kind of social equity...
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
Well, if you really belived that you'd be off some place practicing what you're preachin', not hanging out in a country with an actual government. Guess you're not as firm a believer as you think you are.
Just think of the poor inner-city youth! How else are they going to be able to jack-off to pr0n? Damn this digital divide!
Is L. Ron invading San Francisco?
"Research is like sex: sometimes something useful is produced, but that's not why we do it." -- Richard Feynman
I wonder if this will cause a decrease in the number of people who are interested in learning how to hack someone's wireless simply because they want to be able to use a network where ever they go. It'd be interesting if the simple act of making a blanket wifi network for a city caused a distinct lack of interest in hacking wireless.
disclaimer:
Yes, by hacking I mean using someone elses tools to break someones WEP or WPA-PSK encrypted network. Is there a word for script kiddying? skidding?
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
I live a fairly anarcho-capitalist lifestyle. I don't use American dollars for the majority of my income and purchases, I don't have credit cards, bank accounts, mortgages or federally funded income. I attempt to perform as much of my "welfare" through my church and a few charities that I directly volunteer with.
For the taxes I pay (more out of legal necessity), I find as many loopholes as possible for making sure I'm paying as little as possible.
The main road in my village is private and funded entirely by the residents through recommended donations rather than taxation. I am investigating buying land to open up a co-op village rather than an incorporated one, but the State works against me every time I bring up the idea. In the long run I'll still do it if I find enough people interested in a property-tax and public-school free village, no matter the Federal law.
I won't move out of the U.S., but I will make life more difficult for those who love the State. Rather than working to decrease the size of government in your household, you should fully support every program that you want: the best fall of the State is when it has made too many promises to too many people and collapses on its own.
Is that why the baby Bells are fighting for two-tier internet servercice? They're going to give away basic service for free? SWEEET!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
for $20 I would think you could get an ok net connection and a cheap rooter
Used to be you could get a cheap rooter for $20, but I think Sony quit selling them.
Then by god they should be able to allow to vote for politicians that enact such policies. If the public wishes to not have fiscal responsibility and even vote in socialism into their government, then it is their god given right to do so.
I'm not saying free WiFi is socialism, but to say the public can't be allowed to have a referendum to pay for public works or elect representatives that cannot do what it wants is not a democracy (plain and simple).
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
You rode the short bus to school, didn't you?
So the problem is thus, people in my office, connected to our LAN are also connected to this wide open network where all sorts of bad things could be roaming free. Windows and MacOS both seem to automaticly connect to these rogue networks and thus bypass any local network security I can enforce.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I guess that would be an interesting post if it wasn't for the fact that the SF taxpayers aren't paying a dime for this.
Good try! but I'm sure as past posts have mentioned as soon as this thing comes close to being real (ie. the first AP comes online), the Telcos will put pressure on the powers that be to stall , or otherwise get a cut of the action for themselves.. Look at New Orleans and all their strife.. too much entrenched interest are at stake. But its nice to see some cities having the fortitude to try it.. Out of curiosity what is the largest metro wifi in place today?
The Google/Earthlink deal is not good for consumers: The use of proprietary technologies and hand-picked 'competitors' promise nothing more than another tightly controlled network. So now there will be Cable, DSL, and Googlink. Whoop-de-doo - the illusion of freedom.
It would have been better to implement something like RoofNet, which is fully open source and runs on off-the-shelf components. It's high performance, well tested, and in use here in Cambridge. There will be some add-ons to it made by my company, XA Networks, but compatibility with the open-source software is guaranteed.
Might be off topic but it sounds good and I think I'm going to try it.
~S
If you had read the article you'd realize that the city is not paying a dime, but actually making money from the project. Google and Earthlink are footing the bill to get a foothold, actually paying money to the city to rent space for the towers. Google wants to pump out more ads and Earthlink wants subscribers.
Win, win and win situation.
Does your village use barter or do you print your own currency or use something with more intrinsic value like gold/silver? Do you have banking? That's interesting, I'm not quite to anarcho-capitalism, but closer to what I like than most systems of organization.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
from the article:
Google executives have said that they consider the project an experiment for testing online advertising based on where a user is located.
So people wig out because rfid's in products threaten to expose your whereabouts and to make it easier for companies to spam you everywhere you go, but then Google proposes to do exactly the same thing (though in a more limited context) and everyone says "it's a natural"? Google is in it for the bucks, and if they can leverage our tax dollars to provide themselves with a "free" advertising channel, they are going for it. How is this not evil? Can the cities proposal be changed to not allow advertisements from the vendors, after all, once they chose, they're locked in right (which means that WE, the taxpayer is now locked in).
However...
Half of Hollywood already follows his UFO religion displayed by poster boy Tom Cruise. His Austrian convert is worming his way into more and more govenment workings. Now his followers are taking over the wireless waves. We really should have seen this coming.
I can't help but wonder what plans for California are being devised in a well lit, non-smoking, board room before heading out to a safe night spot for an all night not-drinking binge.
I put together the technical end of the first municiple mesh in the US using LocustWorld meshboxes. It happened only because I moved out of silicon valley to a small town with no municiple bureaucracy to schmooze up. There were just some folks who wanted wireless for tourists coming through their town and we even got it set up so the local ISP didn't get put out of business by the tax subsidy. They took some bids from guys that had no "pockets" or "marquee" at all, and got a solution. I look around at the solemn rhetoric about the wireless mesh in New Orleans subsequent to Katrina, and the rhetoric about rich and poor in San Francisco's wireless access and just thank my lucky stars I'm out here with a bunch of "inbred hicks who don't know what leading edge technology is."
Seastead this.
Some heart-healthy recipe trolls, please.
Back on the topic at hand: I too am wary of government money being spent in this way. But if the money is going to be spent, I'd rather it be spent to build the network that is the least offensive to my libertarian sensibilities as possible.
What we're calling, alternately, 'User-Driven Infrastructure Development' or 'Bring Your Own Router', is a minimal city backbone mesh network, with the majority of the coverage being provided by users buying and installing their own equipment. Want to extend the mesh down your street? Go buy a $100 mesh router, put it in your window, and plug it in. Your neighbor can get onto the mesh using your router, but maybe in her house the signal is only available in one room...so she goes out and buys a mesh router, places it in that one room, and extends the signal throughout her house and to the next street over, where the other guy has a week signal, so he goes out to the store....
You get the idea. There's a lot of refinements that can be made to make it work faster, have better coverage, etc. I am not going to go over them here. This is all built on the high-quality, open-source mesh networking technology RoofNet, which can run on commodity hardware. I am doing some improvements to it and building mesh routers for rooftops, etc. You can do the same. Excuse me while I tout my business, but you may be interested, and it is relevant: XA Networks.
As I mentioned in another post on article, we are building this for the City of Cambridge (of which Boston is a suburb). I've also sold equipment to other places in the US, Africa, and India. It's good, cheap technology...and it's NOT PROPRIETARY!
I think that if the citizens of a town really want to finance this boondoggle (it isn't being provided freely by Earthlink and Google right?), let them do it. R.T.F.A.
So the basic tally on our rights comes to: WiFi Pr0n trash Okay, I can live with that.
I have nothing to say.
We students are getting reamed by Comcast. Give us some free WiFi over here!
Nobody's saying every resident of San Francisco needs to cancel their broadband and use Googlink. It's just convenient. I can't wait for the day if/when a similar project comes to fruition in NYC, and I can just open my laptop wherever I want and be online. It's a freedom students enjoy on college campuses that we start to take for granted... until we get home for the summer. And it's a bummer.
People can keep their Comcast or Verizon or whoever does their high-speed at home... but now your local municipality provides access to the sum total of the world's information wherever you want it. About damn time.
Fragging my father since 2004
This is free and apparently better than dial-up. I know a few low-income people on dial-up, so this might address the balance, but my experience is in New Castle, IN and not San Francisco, CA.
Not a huge surprise -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome is good friends with Larry and Sergei.
go get it
I convert all my paper money into gold and silver immediately upon receiving it. I use gold and silver to purchase almost 30% of my goods right now, and I hope to make it 50% by year's end. You'd be amazed at the amount of local business owners who will take gold and silver at a HUGE discount over retail, I even found 2 gas station owners who will let me buy unleaded with gold and silver (at spot price).
For banking, I don't. I DO have a paypal account, and I also have a green dot debit card that I only fill with dollars if I need to buy something online. I am currently looking into investing in a bank that performs ALL transactions in grains of gold that the depositor owns -- converting to and from dollars on the fly at the current buy price of gold or silver.
It is not easy living this way, but it is VERY profitable. Because I transfer all my dollars into hard money right away (except for paying the basic utilities), I am very controlled in spending. I cut my salary almost 50% over 5 years but I am wealthier today than I have ever been in terms of security and ability to do what I want to do rather than what I have to do. I posted about it at my gold investment forum.
I still have employees who expect dollars, but they get their share before I pay my dividend. I've found some possible tax loopholes that help getting paid directly in gold or silver, but I am still in the process of verifying it with the IRS, so I am paying full tax on the true value rather than the US Mint value.
The way I like to call Anarcho-capitalism is "Life a la carte." I'm always surprised that people here want Cable TV channels a la carte and they want software a la carte, too, but they're happy accepting pre-packaged government services.
Then by god they should be able to allow to vote for politicians that enact such policies. If the public wishes to not have fiscal responsibility and even vote in socialism into their government, then it is their god given right to do so.
Many towns, cities and municipalities have publicly owned and operated electricity, telephone or cable-TV systems, not to mention publicly owned and operated water, sewage and public-works departments, but I've never heard anyone say that any of those are "a basic human right."
If San Francisco wants city-wide. "affordable" Wi-Fi service, hey, more power to them; but calling it "a basic human right" elevates it from a luxury to a necessity and even implies that if San Francisco can't pay for it, then the state or federal government should pay for it.
On the other hand, The Register is a notorious rumour mill.
Damn... i was hoping AOL would win that deal. *shakes fist
I also don't want to move out of the US. I think when people say you should move if you don't like it are totally missing the point. This is my home and it's much better to stay and try to make things better.
So, I guess we should actually vote for every single tax increase and restraint on freedom that gets proposed...
I think that if the citizens of a town really want to finance this boondoggle (it isn't being provided freely by Earthlink and Google right?), let them do it.
And from the article:
Both companies would share the cost of installing the necessary equipment, estimated at up to $12 million. San Francisco will pay nothing and actually reap some fees by leasing city property as perches for Wi-Fi antennas.
We have 3 cheap WiFi providers in the area (very cheap), we have DSL and we have Cable, and now we have 2 more wired providers who are testing the waters. I see no reason to give free access on the taxpayer's backs.
See above. Also, most people don't have those options. Most people, have the access to cable modem, some have access to DSL or other methods. But in most of the country, many choices don't exist. Also, most of these services are available because the companies were allowed right-of-way access to install the infrastructure. Access mandated by, you guessed it, the government.
Since you are an "anarcho-capitalist" (does this mean that if your house is on fire you don't call and use the services of the fire department? If it snows, do you make sure not to drive on the roads that the gov't plows?) You should love this idea. It is capitalism at it's best, companies competing to provide a service to consumers, at no cost to the government, nor the user.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
If you are an anarcho-capitalist, that sounds almost like a Libertarian. In which case, you may want to check out The Free State Project - and move to New Hampshire.
I used to consider myself Libertarian but the Libertarian Party proved to me that they're all about power in politics and libertarians in office are easily corrupted. Now I vote very differently and for different reasons.
I believe the right actions for someone are not to vote or change government but to make real changes in their own lives -- be a beacon. In my church, I don't throw money around (although I do tithe between 20-50% of my income) but I spend time with people. I believe church is helping a guy fix his car or helping an old lady shovel her drive or helping a neighbor kid learn math. That is how I make a difference, not by voting or paying a charity to do work I should do.
I'm a big fan of the mesh networking idea, and I believe fully that the biggest problem with getting more bandwidth out there is the FCC. I wish they would vacate the airwaves and let the free market use the airwaves for moving more information as it is needed (a la carte style).
If Google is teaming w/ Earthlink on anything - then their do no evil maxim is shot.
Earhlink sucks - they are one of the most evil ISPs on the planet. I can't even count the number of friends and family I know who got screwed in Atlanta when Earthlink swallowed Mindspring, and then over the course of a few years fired everybody worth a shit and outsourced all the support, most of the networking, and the majority of the well paid unix and developer jobs to shitty incompetent counterparts in India. They PR'd it as becoming a globably supporting company while at the same time everyone even in upper management (what was left of it) was cussing Sprint's greedy ass exec teams for killing everything Mindspring had worked to build.
Earthlink is Evil - Google doing Earthlink is the same as Google doing Evil.
Doesn't San Fran already have WiFi everywhere? I mean.. there's 108 Starbucks within a 10-mile radius..
The Register is not exactly known for accuracy in reporting and yet again it sounds like they sexed up what he actually said, which was "No San Franciscan should be without a computer and a broadband connection.". That hardly sounds like he is calling it a "human right".
So, I guess we should actually vote for every single tax increase and restraint on freedom that gets proposed...
That's what I've been pondering. I won't vote or support any increase or decrease, any addition or subtraction, just for the simple fact that Congress doesn't read the bills it votes for, and often times the bills contain more pork barrel spending than "fixing" of problems. I just find ways to extricate myself from the dollar and government services, and I support lawsuits against government as often as possible. I figured if 1 million freedom lovers would each spend US$1000 a year and hire our own law firm permanently, we could continuously file lawsuits against every government agency for the slightest constitution (State or National) violation. Keep THEM bottled up in lawsuits and they will leave us alone. Or go bankrupt fighting them.
You're right, I didn't realize it was provided for by private companies, in which case I thin there is merit if it wasn't for the fact that the city of San Francisco had to protect the monopoly of service. Just because taxpayers don't pay for it doesn't mean that it is best for the taxpayers if only one company (or partnership in this case) provides a service.
Nothing is free. If the city will be making money leasing to these two, why don't they lease to anyone who wants entry? Why does the city have to lease anything, how about letting coffee shops and copy stores and private citizens offer it freely at no cost to anyone, not even Google and Earthlink?
They would probably send their security thugs after us and make our life generally difficult. Going bankrupt might be the most likely result. Even a billion dollars a year can't hope to match the resource of taxes stolen from 260 million people. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that money would be better spent in assisting the poor and helpless living in streets and ghettos. We could probably gain a large following through charity. Basically, rather than fight the government, pour our resources into beating it at what it's supposed to do.
Which is actually how I love my life :) I spend about 20-40% of my monthly income on direct tithing support for people in my community, and almost 2 days a week doing the same. The best form of outreach is to truly help someone who is ready to be helped. My primary dislike of government is not helping people but teaching them to be needy. Those who go to government when they have needs are those who will never need my help.
How cool would it be to see the WiFi signs around town with the tiny Google Beta logo underneath.
Can I bum a sig?
These startup executives seem completely intent on raising publicity by announcing these grand wireless projects but have never made them happen and their location is so far away from the population that they're never used.
San Francisco is a tourist attraction. No-one actually lives there or works there and no-one is going to use a wireless network there. Most of the population lives in the east bay and works in the south bay. That's where a wireless network would be most valuable, but saying you're installing a wireless network in San Ramon just doesn't have the appeal that saying it's in San Francisco has.
Of course, the have-nots are going to need to *have* a computer to make use of this technology. Most of the have-nots do not-have a computer, let alone a wireless laptop that tends to be more expensive than a desktop. I love when mayors pretend to bridge the gap, but instead grow the gap.
It takes one hour to get to either Chicago or Milwaukee from your seignoral estate? On private roads? Or perhaps you're taking I-90 or 94, US12 or 14, state and/or county roads? And please refrain from using the courts and police to enforce your contracts. Finally, please don't hire anyone who isn't an auto-didact. Don't want any of your serfs tainted by state ideology.
Seriously, though, what's the difference between the state providing basic infrastructure such as roads and informational infrastructure such as literacy and internet access?
I saw the proposals for this (they were all publically available on the website), and I must say the Google/Earthlink proposal was definitely the best looking proposal as far as being polished. They'd obviously put some serious work and time on it, while the other proposals mostly looked like some guy did them in Word one night. And a few were seriously ratty. If you were going for professionalism and thought that the proposal was a good indicator of what you might expect, then Google/Earthlink was the easy choice even if they weren't the big names they are.
I realize this has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the actual deployment, but I bet it had quite a strong effect.
If enough cities build free wireless networks, I wouldn't be surprised if people started tossing out their 20$/month landlines altogether. The next thing I want is a city-sponsored PBX system, so we wouldn't have to pay that much for SkypeOut in order to let people phone from a POTS system. (Actually I would be happy with the adoption of open standards for VoIP and PBX systems so Skype couldn't leverage a virtual monopoly over us. I'm telling you: I use Skype, but I hope that it will fall one of these days so we can have some open-standards competition goodness.)
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.
On the one hand, I'm a conservative. Small government, stay the hell out of my way. On the other hand, basic communications (internet, telephone, and dare I say it, cell) should be available to anyone cheap and fair. As a capitalist, I see the opportunities for a greater chance ofnew jobs in the sector, if privatived, yet on the other hand, if privatived, a problem with the whole "cheap and fair," part. The other part that worries me is that all of these ciies (New Orleans, Seattle, San Fran) are all doing this independant of any overarching standards, beyond those set by the technologies themselves. One would think that there would need to be some state/federal regulation on the matter, but then my conservative gene starts itching.....Oh well, hail, mighty conondrum!
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
If anyone is interested - they will most likely (they used them with the Mountain View WiFi offering) use http://www.feeva.com/index.html Feeva to supply the localised content/advertising.
I for one am interested to see how the model will work - and how many users they get in the first few months...
Now if only Google would open up some of that dark fibre they keep buying up...
Ele
Of course you wouldn't have realized that. That would have meant reading the article.
Does this mean they have been given Letters of Marque?
Let the privateering begin!
Last I checked, it costs quite a bit to live even near San Francisco. I've noticed homeless people there, but are there really poor people living in San Francisco?
Cingular has already rolled out Bay area wide HSDPA for $20 a month
so who needs spotty Wifi?? A waste of time considering the 1 meg throughput with Cingular.
Sineira
Nothing is free. If the city will be making money leasing to these two, why don't they lease to anyone who wants entry? Why does the city have to lease anything, how about letting coffee shops and copy stores and private citizens offer it freely at no cost to anyone, not even Google and Earthlink?
Because, as you just said Nothing is free. You want the coffee shops and copy stores to offer it? Who pays for their routers? If not the coffee shops or the t axpayers, then who? Linksys gives it 'for free' (meaning they pay for it by losing profits)? Who pays for the ISP/Data transfer costs? If not the copy stores or the taxpayers, then the ISPs (meaning the lose money, clogging their pipes that they could be selling instead)?
As you yourself admit, nothing is free. As an 'anarco-capitalist' you know this. The only reason those coffee shops and copy stores offer their free wifi is because it's a value to the customer, one they hope will lure more customers to their stores and thus make them more money.
That's capitalism. Money. And ESPECIALLY in a government-less, pure capitalism run society, NOTHING is free.
Google has jumped the shark.