Following this week’s news on the Ad-based gPhone, the “new” free NYT, and the Veronis Suhler report, I was getting ready to write a post on “Advertism”: The economic system that’s quickly replacing our own and how in the future everything will be paid for by ads. Then I realized the–early morning–stupidity of this prediction. We have to pay at some point. Nothing’s free.
Many of us have gotten used to scanning over, TiVoing out, and “skip this ad”ing all the plugs that pay for the very content we so freely enjoy. The various companies, while certainly aware of this, are counting on the fact that at-least enough of it gets through for us to buy their product. But do we? I’ve many a-times used “No, it’s the Gieco lizard” as a punchline, but I’ve never considered switching to Geico. Already today I’ve checked my MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook and couldn’t recall to you one of the ads that were most certainly there. Now, I’m not in advertising, but I’m guessing the reason this all continues, and continues to grow, is in part because of an overall good economy, and in part because of a lack of accountability. But what if they could find out? What if there were a module/widget that made sure you knew who was footing-the-bill for the next paragraph of your WSJ article? What if you had to agree to buy something in exchange for a free week of YouTube?
My concern is that as we–understandably– cheer and celebrate the free content that our lives are starting to revolve around, we also realize who it is that really controls
services that, again, our lives are starting to revolve around. They are not, though our fast-clicking subconscious believes otherwise, a charity.
It’s pretty much an advertising guru’s job to try and find new ways to grab people’s attention, and I don’t see them disappearing any time soon. I think as long as people are looking and listening to anything on a predictable basis, there will be the potential for ads to follow them. I personally love my Adblock Plus extension for FireFox, and I’m not looking back.
I think you’re on to something. “Free” is not a business model. Far be it from me to predict the future, but I think we will see a pretty significant shake out of the ad-driven sites. We’ll end up paying for the stuff that is exclusive, that is hard to create and we won’t mind paying for it. It’s already happening with the many of the business publications.
I think I’d pay for someone to filter that soup of web content into something that filters the crap, verifies the quality etc, based on my particular preferences and interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/business/media/27wrap.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
[…] people have when it comes to believing that there’s such a thing as ‘free’ (see Advertism). But Facebook’s big problem, for me, is not a flagrant disregard for privacy, a Draconian […]