News.com tends to consist of little more than a collection of press releases and product announcements. However, their new feature, The Death of the Free Web is a fine collection of articles measuring the effects of the crash of dot-com-tomfoolery.
The bottom line of the articles is that we will all start to pay to web services. I agree and disagree. I agree because this is not a new idea. Jakob Nielsen has been saying for years that until there is a good scheme for micropayments (an easy way to pay for small transactions) the net will not mature. Also, companies like GoTo.com have been charging and gladly proclaiming it. They go so far as to list the cost to advertiser next to every search result. This is a brilliant exercise in simplicity and a straightforward business plan (although I sure as hell didn’t spend $0.53 based on my search results).
On the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum we have sites like Go.com, Snap.com, and Netscape.com which couldn’t possibly suck more. These properties deserve to crumble as they were built on false premises summed up nicely by the former CEO of Terra Lycos, “Audience was meant to drive stickiness, stickiness was meant to drive the network at large, and the network at large was meant to drive earnings.” If A then B. Duh.
On the other hand, the free web is doing nicely. Despite some hiccups in publishing schedules and hosting, as Jefferey Zeldman says, the independent content producer refuses to die. There are fantastic independent sites out there.
In a professional context, I’ve seen the web do some pretty cool stuff for real businesses. Not eyeballs or stickiness, but cash (increasing sales, reducing costs, increasing efficiency).
Regardless, the web continues to be about what it has always been about: funny pictures (like pictures of me, and of robots).