Free Web Content a "Myth," Claims Barry Diller

BotScout writes "Following in the footsteps of other traditional media executives who just don't get it, Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, said web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, and that's that. The media and technology executive said it's 'mythology' to view the Internet as a system of free communications. 'It is not free, and is not going to be,' Diller said yesterday at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Pasadena, California. Companies from Disney to New York Times Co. are seeking ways to extract revenue from the Internet. The latter recently said that it's considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper's web site."

Comments

Re:You'll never get my money!

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. People barely tolerate having to register at the NYT website and that's free. If they actually expect that people are going to be willing to pay money to read it, they're going to be in for quite a shock.

thats IAC the spyware company

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck him and his company, (we) have spent thousands of hours removing his companies shit from our network
they target kids especially

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/ask-toolbars/
http://www.google.com/search?q=iac+spyware

Barry Diller track record

[Animats]

Let's look at the record of Barry Diller companies.

• Home Shopping Network. Infomercial channel. Did OK.
• Ticketmaster Bought up competitors. Achieved near-monopoly. Raised prices. Did very well.
• Expedia Travel agency. Leader in field.
• Lending Tree Mortgage loans. Sold off after losses.
• Interval International Time-share condos. Sold off from IAC in 2008.
• Ask.com Search engine. Market share near zero.
• Rushmoredrive.com Niche search engine for black people. Ceased operations a few weeks ago.

So you can see where Diller is coming from. His ad-based businesses have been disasters, while his transaction-charge businesses have done well. (Lending Tree had some bad years because they speculated in mortgages, instead of just brokering them.)

Re:Why?

[Paul Fernhout]

"There is simply no model right now that supports the free distribution of movies that cost $140 million to make and would additional require huge amounts of bandwidth to distribute."

True, but a lot of people are now watching five minute shorts made by their peers for youtube instead. So, times change. And some people are even making much longer things for youtube or other venues.