TNSTAAFL
Kellan Elliott-McCrea talks at length about paying for Web services.
It’s a question that can be addressed from two directions, both interesting. You can frame the question as, “What is the business model?”, or you can ask “How does a community support a resource it finds useful?”.
I find that this is a question that your average user doesn’t really consider. I think that’s just common human nature—if there is no cost of entry, we don’t think about the costs of upkeep.
An example: Your average churchgoer might never think of what it takes, financially speaking, to run a church if we didn’t pass an offering plate every Sunday—but the costs are there regardless.
While you can “pass the hat” in meatspace, it’s much harder online. I’ve got a fair amount of experience with this, as I largely finance a community-run Web service. There are many generous folks who donate to help us stay up and running, and I greatly appreciate those people—and they know who they are, so I don’t need to name them. But I’m always bemused when people think that a service package like what we provide with the RMFO network doesn’t cost that much. I wish that it didn’t!
If you read Kellan’s piece, you’ll run across the same words I did:
A few years ago this would have been an unprecedentedly large amount. The idea that we were all going to get rich selling online services was so firmly rejected that it became a commonly accepted truism that “people won’t pay for things online”, and yet, quietly, almost under the radar this seems to be changing.
It really is. I think this is the maturation of the Internet population understanding, fully, TNSTAAFL.
Nice entry. A minor nitpick: Heinlein’s original acronym is TANSTAAFL. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
September 21st, 2004 at 10:55You’re quite right. Of course, I’ve never read word one of RAH. :shrug:
September 21st, 2004 at 10:57You don’t grok Heinlein? May I suggest you start with Starship Troopers (the book not the movie), continue with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land and then I will loan you Time Enough for Love (as soon as I get through re-reading it).
I believe Heinlein is up to your intelectual level and he will make you think.
September 21st, 2004 at 19:11My favorite Heinlein is Job: A Comedy of Errors, runners up are Door into Summer and Tunnel in the Sky. Perhaps it’s time for me to reread some of my copies…
September 22nd, 2004 at 11:22Audioscrobblin’ and Guiltin’
February 3rd, 2005 at 12:31Some time back, my boy Andrew Thomas goaded a bunch of us into trying Audioscrobbler. Eventually, I decided to get over my initial data privacy concerns and throw it out there. I love collaborative filtering, and I was going to get benefits out of it…