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6th January 2002 |
THE END OF THE FREE LUNCH? |
Brian Grainger |
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For some time now commentators have been suggesting that web sites, having found that advertising does not pay, will be looking to charge for web content. As we enter the new year it is sobering to think that 2002 may be remembered as the year when the web was no longer free. Up until now it is the record companies and the mainstream publishers that have been leading the way in charging for content. We all know the lengths to which the record companies have gone to kill the likes of Napster, but so far we do not have any figures to know whether the replacement subscription model is working. The main newspapers in the UK have tried charging for premium content. Again no results are available to know whether it works. In the US the New York Times, while giving free access to the current news, charges for access to the news archives. Now we enter 2002 with news of a new charge for accessing the web. At the back end of last year NTL, the cable company, announced that it was to start charging for web access via the NTLWorld link. Previously, unlimited access to the web was available at no cost to subscribers to the NTL telephone service. Of course, there was a charge for the telephone subscription but this was (sort of) competitive with charges for alternatives such as BT so the internet service was, to all intents and purposes, free. Starting January 2002, NTL is to charge its existing customers £5 a month for the service, with new customers having to pay £10 a month. This is still very competitive with alternatives from BT or AOL but is this charge just the beginning? The cable companies have a habit of ramping up the charges once they have the customers locked in. Also, customers outside the main cable area will still be required to spend £15 a month minimum on telephone calls. It is ominous that NTL is heavily in debt at the moment and its strategy for dealing with it has been reported to be to discourage new users of its services, (which cost money in discounts), in favour of increasing the amount existing customers will pay per month for the various services, (TV, telephone and Internet). Being a Freeserve customer, who pays local phone call charges for my access, I am slightly worried over what the future holds. Freeserve was taken over last year by a French company and it was recently reported that they were not renewing the telephone contract with Energis. It begs the question as to who will provide the links and, more importantly, at what cost. We know that Microsoft is to start charging for certain passport services in the future, although we have been told they will not charge for Hotmail. However, charging for mail storage has not been ruled out and I have not heard similar assurances for the Messenger service. Yes, 2002 may be the year when surfers find the free lunch has been withdrawn. |
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