The Internet is getting less and less free, says the NY Times, and surfers are seemingly softening their resistance to paying for content. Seems to validate the prophecies of TheEndOfFree.com. My fears about this are similar to my fears of pay-per-view TV--it's a can of worms which, once opened, will someday lead to having to pay for everything from "SportsCenter" to stock quotes to nickel-per-message e-mail. But pragmatically, the-end-of-free may be a natural reaction to the dramatic failure of banner ads (and those insidious pop-up ads).
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/01/technology/01ONLI.html
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