"retarded is assuming that everything is free"
nobody here disagrees with that.
let me try to point out what you're missing. first, you can at least agree with the truism that "time is money", yes? if you don't believe that, then you've got a lot more education to find than i can give.
that being said, there are two finite things in this world -- real estate and time available. there will never be more square footage on the planet and there will never be more time in the day. countries can print more money. people can come up with more ideas. but, land and time are fixed. period. that's one of the reasons for "time is money."
now, stay with me here...
think about it. even if everything was "free" by being ad-driven, there is only so much attention (a single person's application of time) that can be spent with an ad, right?
so, imagine option 1: you have paid-for content -- a subscription model even. unfortunately, there are tons and tons of "free" alternatives out there that are ad supported. but your content isn't really that much better because of the low barriers to entry. and it's certainly not better and different enough to warrant a subscription and the consumer friction that causes. nobody subscribes. you go out of business.
now, imagine option 2: you have free content that gets paid for by ads, but nobody has the time to view your content because they're engaged with other content and their ads. movies, games, social networking, whatever. because, that's where their friends are linking them to and the network effect gives them the eyeballs. or because their content is better. or because of any of hundreds of reasons due to the crazy-low switching cost of the web. your visitor numbers fall. your advertisers stop advertising. you go out of business.
what's even worse than that?
combining the two: you have a paywall for your "good" content and everyone can get some of your "not-as-good" content for free by way of advertising revenue. so, for the half that's paid, see option 1 -- people can still get equivalent content without a subscription. for the unpaid half, see option 2 -- but worse because it's not your best content and it usually the "best" content that benefits from switching costs and network effects. and, for a multiplicitive effect, see the problems of ignoring the rule of "do one thing and do it well."
even worse, imagine this: you have free content that gets paid for by ads, but nobody has the time to view your content because they're engaged with other, better content and their ads. your advertisers stop advertising. you go out of business.
how much money do you make when everyone is walking right by your shop because all of a sudden, there are 50,000 shops that sell basically the same thing as you and they're all within an a single, simple step?
now what do you do?
welcome to what's called "real competition" rather than serendipity enabled by the false constraints of physical location and middlemen. welcome to a world where there's a glut of content vying for our attention. welcome to the attention economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy
everything is most certainly NOT free. the currency is just different than what you're used to. and getting people to even care enough to spend that new currency is the hard part.
because people who won't even bother to give you any of their attention most certainly won't give you any of their dollars.
m3mnoch.
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"I've never made out with him," Lauren Leto told me last week, between puffs of a Parliament Light. The 24-year old brunette, rocking a little black dress and flat boots, was debunking my suspicions that she might be romancing her notoriously cute business partner, Patrick Moberg, the talented artist perhaps best known for making the website NewYorkGirlofMyDreams.com in 2008.
Leto and Moberg recently launched the well-funded start-up BNTER, a site that stores the best conversations between users and their friends. BNTER comes on the heels of Leto's big Internet hit, TextsFromLastNight.com, the website that earned her two book contracts, a TV deal, and, reportedly, lots of money. But back to girl talk: "It's the same with [Texts co-founder] Ben [Bator]," she explained. "I picked such attractive co-founders, people assume we must all be dating. But, no, no, no. We're co-employees! And the thing people don't understand is that when you're, like, writing checks with someone — when money is involved — you become so sexually unattractive to that person." She exhaled. "This is why I can never get married."
Leto was smoking outside an East Village apartment playing host to the Silicon Alley version of a singles mixer — a meet-up for users of HowAboutWe.com, the dating website Brian Schechter co-founded on Valentine's Day in 2010. Users suggest date ideas or contact people whose ideas they like. "How about we go to an underground supper club?" was among the site's most popular date ideas during its first year, so Andy and Ashley — a couple who met on How About We — decided to throw the soiree, and Apt. No. 4, a traveling group of foodie friends, worked the kitchen, supplying lobster bisque and teriyaki char and drinks. Leto was a featured single on How About We this month: She answered every question with a quote from the Kelis song "Bossy"; she said she was at the party to support Schechter and not necessarily to find a man.
Nick Gray, the quick-witted Williamsburg party boy, would have it otherwise, though. "Lauren and I haven't dated yet, but I'm trying," he told us. When Leto offered no reply, Gray joked, "Awkward ..."
How About We's Schechter, meanwhile, admitted that online dating might always carry a stigma: "People say [the stigma's] decreasing, and soon there won't be any," he told us. "But when you go onto an online dating site, in some way you're confessing, 'I don't have what I want,' which is not necessarily an attractive thing. People tend to find someone attractive who has what they want. So I wonder if it's actually a psychological or cultural or almost biological thing: 'I want the one who doesn't need.'" He added: "I do think it will become increasingly normal. It's efficient. And a site that's about having fun and not confessing, necessarily, that you don't have something you want, is more likely to attract people. You're just saying, 'I want to try new restaurants!' Etcetera." Schechter has a girlfriend who he didn't meet over the Internet, but he said he still gets several e-mails a day with the subject line "How about we ...?"
Gray is one fan of the site who hasn't had much success on it yet: "I think my date ideas are intimidating to some people," he told us. "I used to think that I was a real catch, and now I've only had three people who wanted to go on my dates. Some people write, 'How about we get high and eat pizza?' and they get, like, one hundred people interested. And I write, 'Let's go to Rio for New Year's Eve!' Or, 'Let's go to Greece and open a falafel stand!' And people are like, 'Eh. Weirdo.'"
Leto claims she doesn't send many late-night texts of her own anymore because she gets up at six every morning, "so nervous" that something might have happened overnight. Telling us she still "lives poorly," she admitted she recently got an apartment of her own in Brooklyn. "I bought furniture, and I'm an adult," she added. But of dating in New York, Leto lamented: "Everyone wants something from you."
What she wanted from me, at least half-seriously, was less attention. At one point, she pretended to have stolen my tape recorder so that I couldn't report on her any further. And when I asked too many questions, she said: "This is going to seem like navel-gazing for myself. No navel-gazing allowed!" But she's just so good at all this, I informed her, as at least half the men at the party tracked her across the room. On cue, with a seemingly legitimate confusion, she asked, "Good at what?"
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