So who here would honestly pay access websites?
Free content only goes so far, and with the possible exception of porn sites, I don't see too much in the way of pay content or people willing to pay for content on the net.
Add to that the current ad/pop-up blockers it seems that the internet is doomed to fail. If advertising on the net is failing, as is so claimed, websites should be falling like flies, yet it continues to operate on basically free content. Servers certainly are not free, neither is maintenance, or programming for that matter, so what keeps the internet alive?
This site is probably somewhat of a phenom, with the donations and all, soI'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on the state of internet today and tomorrow.

I think some sights are going to be around because it is someone's hobby. And hobbies cost money regardless of what they are. Just my 2 cents worth.

I don't see how the internet is going to fail because people don't buy things. If a website doesn't get good business, the person goes out to a job and pays for it or just switches it over to free content. But you have to be well known like eBay or Amazonbooks.com to get any real recognition or business in that area.

This brings to mind one morning on the Today Show, where they were "predicting" what sort of things we have to look forward to 20 years from now. One of them was computers, which they said would be reduced to the size of cellphones.

Could you imagine: 8-bit Baldur's Gate! [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

not 8bit hopefully but i would like the concept of bg1 -2 plus expansions in the game boy :D .

Its true at the rate of advancement in technology. But that doesn't necessarily mean ur monitor has to be that small.

There is very little good origional content on the internet but there are a few good sites,

maddox.xmission.com -Humourous essays

www.designersnotebook.com -about computer game design

Yeah, that's a great site. My brother loves it. The only problem is that it's probably one of the most politically incorrect pages in the Internet, so I don't know if it's for the IW people. ;)

All well and good, but are you going to support these "free" sites? No, then I wonder how they will continue be able to support themselves.

IMO, the internet was not originally designed to be a commercial media. Therefore most attemps to make quick bucks from the net results in failure. However, if the charges for hosting and maintaining sites were to be reduced/lowered, free sites will continue to exist. Some people put up free sites as part of their hobby and a self-promotions.

Of course not all free sites do have valueble informations/contents, but some sites do have what you are looking for (although not as comprehensive), as long as you have the patience to look around.

The internet is evolving and continues to do so, who knows what it will be in another few years?

[ 06-05-2004, 04:09 AM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]