End of the Internet

I read a lot of advertising trade journals and media research journals these days. Here's the salient fact that has everyone paralyzed with fear. Internet advertising rates are collapsing. The ad networks that serve as their media buying services are in danger of going under. The smarter folks in these businesses, and there are some smart ones, are beginning to wonder if Internet advertising revenue isn't a mirage, that it will never support content providers the way print, radio, and TV advertising did.

 

This is the living embodiment of the joke about the little girl selling lemonade for "a million dollars a glass."
The punch line is: "I only have to sell one."

 

Which may be how high-end, high-effort, high-overhead content on the internet will be pushed finally toward a subscription model like cable television.

 

I agree ZV. But there will be a lot of pain from here to there.

 

Exactly right. The race now is to see which institutions (NYT, WP, et al.) can be sustained on life-support until a new business model arises.

 

The barn door is open and the horses are gone. The masses will never pay for internet content from individual sites. There will always be enough free stuff or content that is provided by internet providers at no additional cost.

The day places like Slate start charging is the day they lose readers in mass.

 

OK.

Explain Rivals.com.

 

Slate is not content I would pay for. The Times and Wall street Journal are another matter.
The simplest means of charging would be to fold information service charges into the service provider bill. I'm paying Verizon for so many different uses, a subscription for information fee would hardly be noticed.
If consumers don't think news is worth paying for, but Showtime is, then screw 'em. Our society is doomed anyway.

 

I don't need anymore than the free stuff that rivals provides

 

You don't. I don't. But people buy up the subscriptions like crack.

 

Guys, the advertising model newspapers use worked for centuries. Why wouldn't it work now on the Internet, which can be done more cheaply than in print?

 

"Word bitch, Phantoms like a Ma'fucker!"