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Member since:
2006-04-18
Arguments like "everybody pays hundreds of dollars per month for TV, movies, newpapers, etc." don't work. I don't, so it's not "everybody", and I'm sure there are plenty of people like me. I have no TV. I would sometimes like to watch TV, but there is no way that I would pay $50 per month to the cable company for it. I get a newspaper every once in a while. I subscribe to one magazine. And I have pretty cheap DSL. I buy books sometimes.
I might pay something like $5 per month for a few sites that I visit a lot, (mostly OSNews and Ars Technica), but don't ever expect me to pay even one cent to read a blog post. I certainly would never pay more than $25 per month for the content that I read on the internet.
Also, a lot of people use the internet to find information, not to have it passively fed to them like on a news site. If I look up something, and I see that one of the search results in Google wants me to pay to read it, I ignore it.
The problem is, there is great demand for cheap information. If information becomes more expensive, people will consume less information. It's that simple.
And that's where articles like this (and rebuttals) miss the mark. They never take into account the human factor. I share your opinion-I already 'pay too much' for my internet, what with my cell phone data access plan and AT & T U-verse account. If were to be charged to look at the internet on top of that, I'll be much more likely to go 'back in time' and play games offline, subscribe to newspapers, etc.
I know, I'm sure this sounds like a 'radical' opinion, but if I have to choose between paying hundreds of dollars (as opinioned) for TV, internet, etc. and feeding myself, taking vacations with that money saved, etc. it's going to be a no brainer IMHO