[HIB]The End of the Free Internet

There's an article today at abc.com that looks at recent trends around net-based pay-for services and the smattering of paywalls from News Corp to the NYT that are up or threatening to be put up, and speculating that this could be the beginning of a trend. Of course, a YouTube video rental site and a few large publishers putting up paywalls will make zero difference to the "free internet" on their own. But if they're successful, it could spark emulation. But could this be a trend that could snowball enough to change the nature of the net? I doubt it. As an online publisher myself, I've seen what's happened to advertising rates, so I know why there's all the heartburn out there. But by prediction is this: having individual internet users pay for content is destined to be a niche strategy.

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