Re: Networks are for corporations and offices, right?

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from  on Thu, 15 Jun 2006
06:42:19 -0700


>> On TV or in print media etc, they can do that, because
>> they buy the time or the space.
>> On the Net, they can't -- there's nothing to buy (that's GOOD!).

> Except that they're trying to. Surely you've heard
> about Google's bright idea to
> let sites pay to have their URLs be put at the top
> of the search list?

But that's entirely different. My point is, Google paid 25 bucks to register
their domain, and so did I -- the cost of being a player is administrative,
nominal, and flat (not $36,000 for a full page, which is the NYTimes' rate last
time I checked). What Google does with their domain is their affair, and
likewise. They really don't *owe* you unweighted results; they are, after all,
a business. Or, should I say, a Business. A VBB, at that. But it's true that
the whole spirit of the original web was cooperative, not competitive. It was
an entirely different model than the one that emerged in the 90s, and I've
detested every minute of its passing. Another virtue back then was that there
were no, or few, "clueless dweebs". The average user was much smarter than
today.

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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