Yeah; Google seems to make quite a bit of coin off their "free" search engine and with their "free" maps website.
As for why bother discussing this: I don't think I'm alone in believing in a better B2C business model for the internet than "we'll get lots of users to spend lots of time with our thing, then make them look at ads". It's been said many times here before, but I'll repeat that it seems like a waste to have so many smart and talented people spending so much time on making people look at ads.
Comments
Yeah; Google seems to make quite a bit of coin off their "free" search engine and with their "free" maps website.
As for why bother discussing this: I don't think I'm alone in believing in a better B2C business model for the internet than "we'll get lots of users to spend lots of time with our thing, then make them look at ads". It's been said many times here before, but I'll repeat that it seems like a waste to have so many smart and talented people spending so much time on making people look at ads.