Penny-Per-Page?? Are they crazy?

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/penny-per-page.htm

Just read this article on HowStuffWorks, while surfing the web. Evidently, under this system, I would have already spent 50 cents browsing the web today. And that was just this morning. And that was only counting unique web sites (hey, I browse the web a lot). I'd probably be over a dollar if it counted individual pages on a particular site. Well, let's take that 50 cents, and multiply it by 30, for the entire month. This $15 a month I am spending to look at stuff that I used to be able to look at for free!! And that is on top of the $17.95 per month for my ISP. Hey, if I hadn't switched to 768K DSL, it would be on top of the $42.95 charged by Comcast. Outrageous!

The article argues that if all websites had this revenue, that they would be able to offer better content. It argues that sites like Google, would be able to work wonders with the extra $1 million a day. But, I'm very happy with what Google already offers for free. I am using Blogspot right now, completely for free. Hey, Google even manages to run this without ads. Not to mention all of the other products Google offers for free. Calendar, Spreadsheet, G-Mail, Picasa, Earth, just to name a few. And this is on top of the great search engine they already have. Obviously Google's business model is working, and the company is not going under anytime soon.

The article also argues that people will accept this model for the internet, since we do with so many other things. For example, we pay an amount per KHW for electricity, or per gallon for water. The reason why? There's no alternative. I bet if an electric company came along and said, "We are going to subsidize our funding through another source, and charge a flat rate of $75/month for service," people would jump on that. You could say goodbye to the old electric company. You can see this same trend with telecommunications company. Originally, most telecoms billed by the minute. And as a result, people were stingy with their long-distance calling. I remember those days in college, tracking the minutes on phone calls home, so I could afford to pay the bill. Now, many companies are offering packages like Verizon Freedom: pay a higher rate for unlimited calling. Very good for people who make a lot of phone calls. People in general do not like to be nickle-and-dimed (or -pennied, in the case of this article) for service. The article discusses a flat-rate model for this, charged by the ISP. It is annoying enough to look at a bill, and see the UFSF fees and taxes that are already added. I sure as hell don't want to find a $15 flat rate browsing fee added to my ISP bill. Especially when the alternative is free!

This kinda reminds me of the whole MP3 downloading thing. I'll admit that I still illegally download music, despite the availability of paid services. I do occasionally pay, but, if I want more than I can afford, I jump over to LimeWire. I know it is wrong, and illegal, but it is an easy and free alternative, with a slim chance of getting caught. I believe that the two main reasons people pay for the Internet is because they either A) don't want to break the law, or B), want to support the artist (and their record company) financially. Great! However, in the case of a pay-per-page-view Internet, option A does not exist, and no one really cares about option B. It is not illegal to view a page for free. And, I've never known anyone to feel sorry for Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page because they did a Google search for free.

And freedom is the great thing about the Internet. I marvel in the fact that people go to lengths to provide information and services for free, just out of interest, or the goodness in their hearts. That is why I admire Open Source projects so much. I currently am using OpenOffice.org as my office suite. Here is a fully-functional suite that does just as much, or more, than Microsoft Office. This program was created by open-source developers, who generally put in their time for free. Heck, I am running FireFox right now. A program built on the same idea. I am sure you can find lots of examples on the Internet of people who are not in it for the money. Imposing such a business model on the Internet turns it into just another greedy enterprise, instead of the open, information-sharing medium it is now.

The article offers several ways for to implement a penny-per-page approach. Obviously, one or two websites can't just start this--who would buy into that? Instead, it advocates that the top 1,000 websites ban together to start this, leaving users with little choice. Or, that ALL ISPs ban together to start this. Let's hope this doesn't happen. But if it does, I would be the first to boycott these sites. Even if it meant giving up services. Don't fall into their trap of, "It's only a penny," because pennies add up. Don't let anyone take away the freedom of the Internet.

By the way, I am no expert on this topic, but read this article, was immediately enraged, and needed to vent. I did find this article against micropayments, which is, I guess the technical term for this. It offers better evidence against such a business model.

Also, on another note, I did find it amusing that the author of the Penny-Per-Page article is the creator of one of the larger sites on the web, Marshall Brain of HowStuffWorks.com. Of course this would work out great for him. He owns the website! Hey, maybe if enough people read my blog, I could get pennies too!--unless Google gets to them first.

The old saying that usually applies to premarital relationships also works great with this argument: "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"