I've always thought of the internet as being something free for my entertainment. Only now do I realize that the internet might not be as free as I thought it was.
Many of the good sports recruiting web sites I liked to visit, such as Rivals.com were free, but now you have to pay to get all the good info. I'm sorry, I can't afford $9.95 a month or $99.95 annually, just to get the inside scoop on KU athletics. That price is too much for me to handle considering I'm not a psycho fan. Stats and figures of high school juniors considering KU as one of their top six schools is not worth paying to view.
I'll just wait to follow Cole's career when he gets to KUPhoto:Courtesy scout.com
Apparently though, paying for content is something that many people don't have a problem with. In 2002, the Online Publishers Association conducted a survey and found that 12.4 million Americans paid for some type of content in the first quarter of 2002, compared with 7 million in the first quarter of 2001. This doesn't even include people paying to visit pornography sites! The survey showed people were paying to visit news sites, financial/business sites, even online greeting card sites.
More recently, consumer content spending in 2003 grew to nearly $1.6 billion, which was an 18.8 percent increase over 2002. The three most popular categories were personals/dating, business/investment and entertainment/lifestyles. The personals/dating sites generated the most revenue. The numbers just keep rising every year. If you're a company, why not make your content pay to view. People will apparently pay for it.
I guess they don't seem to have a problem with paying to view what they want. I personally, will not pay for any content. It might have to do with the fact that I'm a poor college student, but if you search hard enough, you can get what you're looking for for free. Just a few more clicks to find what you want is worth saving $9.95 a month.
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