Where is the Internet going?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by the announcement at the top of the page.

I was thinking (It doesn’t happen a lot but it does happen.) about the Internet earlier. I have been online for about seven years, maybe slightly less, and I have seen the nature of the web change.

By this I mean the general makeup of the type of site on the web. In this day and age every large ‘bricks and mortar’ business has a web site. A lot of small businesses do to. Some businesses run entirely online. The number of eBusinesses (e.g. Amazon.com) has increased tremendously in the last couple of years. (Remember the .com bubble?) More and more of them are breaking even or even Shock making a profit.

The number of online news sites has increased some site that started out as hobbies (gaming news sites for example) are now being run as businesses.

When I first started the Internet there was very little of this, the only companies with corporate websites were blue-chip ones. Individuals or small groups of people ran most sites. I think this could be audience related, back then there were a lot less people on line. In fact from what I remember most homes didn’t have computers in them

So the question is where is it all heading, some sites are beginning (or thinking of) charging for access. Advertising doesn’t seem to work, (I know of at least one site that was declared bankrupt) what will the future be like? Large pay for content sites? Small sites run by enthusiasts? What do you think?

2

Gartog=Al Gore! :eek:

4

Remember when t.v. was free? Then came cable and the end of free t.v. That’s where the internet is headed. Some sites, of course, will always still be free (.gov sites, shopping sites, big company sites) and will be fine for the everyday user. Other sites, e.g. encyclopedias, entertainment msg boards, music and movie download sites, game sites, will charge a monthly or annual subscription fee. And still others will charge big bucks for “premium” services, such as one-stop-shops where a bunch of companies will be bundled together and you will have unlimited access to things like encyclopedias, kick-butt search engines, travel agencies, instant messaging, chat rooms, message boards, etc.

5

Then what the heck was I watching for 20 years before I got cable? :slight_smile:

I think most pay-sites are going to have to face an awful truth: most people aren’t willing to pay. This is both because people are used to getting stuff for free online, and because most sites simply aren’t worth paying for for most people. Heck, the SDMB is one of the very few sites I visit that I’d be willing to pay a dime for.

On a slightly different topic, I like to think that the lack of ad revenue online is evidence that advertising does not work nearly as well as is commonly thought.