The Trouble With Free

Matthew Yglesias: >And so once the basic business proposition is “this company will make the most amazing Web services available and give them away for free in order to sell you to advertisers,” plummeting levels of privacy become inevitable. Very true, he also asks the million dollar question: >The business question is that if we…

Matthew Yglesias:

>And so once the basic business proposition is “this company will make the most amazing Web services available and give them away for free in order to sell you to advertisers,” plummeting levels of privacy become inevitable.

Very true, he also asks the million dollar question:

>The business question is that if we assume some other firm or set of firms could come up with comparable quality products to Gmail, Youtube, Google Search, etc., how many people would be willing to pay a premium for privacy-respecting ad-free versions of them and how much would they be willing to pay?

[I would](http://brooksreview.net/2011/03/fragility-free/), but I am not the majority.

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