This is my least favorite argument when talking about removing advertising from my life. Facebook and Google will simply do something else. Why is "ad supported" always considered the only business model?
What business model do you see for Google that doesn't involve advertising but would allow them to continue providing Gmail and search? Yes, they might conceivably charge $15/mo for a while. But then Comcast will come along and say, "Hey, here's a (mediocre) search and email service that we will bundle for 'free'!" and just like that, Google basically stops providing search and email (or provides it only to bundling partners).
>>>But then Comcast will come along and say, "Hey, here's a (mediocre) search and email service that we will bundle for 'free'!"<<<
I don't know about you, but I would pay for Gmail in a heartbeat. It's a great service. I can guarantee that Comcast would make something 1,000 times crappier and that I'd waste hundreds of hours of my life fighting with it.
In fact, I'd rather be paying for Gmail so that I'd be their customer and not their product. I'm happy that I pay for Pinboard because I know that it motivates them to please me and not someone else to whom they can sell my data. And I'm happy because my payment is an investment in the continued existence of a service I value.
You're asserting that Gmail and Google search aren't valuable enough for people to pay for them. If that's true, they shouldn't exist in a free market. But I don't think it's true.
dpark|14 years ago
billybob|14 years ago
I don't know about you, but I would pay for Gmail in a heartbeat. It's a great service. I can guarantee that Comcast would make something 1,000 times crappier and that I'd waste hundreds of hours of my life fighting with it.
In fact, I'd rather be paying for Gmail so that I'd be their customer and not their product. I'm happy that I pay for Pinboard because I know that it motivates them to please me and not someone else to whom they can sell my data. And I'm happy because my payment is an investment in the continued existence of a service I value.
You're asserting that Gmail and Google search aren't valuable enough for people to pay for them. If that's true, they shouldn't exist in a free market. But I don't think it's true.