Is the concept of a free ISP completely dead?
We still are a free ISP. AOL runs, on its worst day, five times as many ads as a free ISP ever did. The irony is that we’re the purest. We’re the only pay ISP that doesn’t pop banner ads at you while you’re online. You couldn’t start a free ISP now because the advertising market’s not fertile enough. So what’s the future of free, advertising-supported services–kinds of free sites–on the Web? I think the free services, ad supported and the like, will be adjunct services. They won’t be core services. This happened in the cable industry in the 1970s, when the whole notion was they would charge advertisers for commercials. The problem was they were so fragmented that the rates they charged were low…they wound up charging consumers a monthly fee, plus you had advertising. What about the psychology of the Internet user? People are used to the notion that if it’s on the Web, it should therefore be free. The notion is this: If it’s on the Web, it should be free. But if companies can’t make
