Andrew Ecklund a columnist for the hometown Strib has an article up today begging 2.0 media users to pay for the use of the various apps (myspace, facebook, twitter, digg, etc).
This is pretty pathetic, even for a tech journalist. These firms are not non profits, they went into business (or were funded) with the hope of eventually making money and tons of it, either through a functional business model or (and more likely) being bought by Google. If facebook wanted to charge for access it was probably better to do it from the beginning, but with myspace being free it most likely wouldn't have caught on. So they went with the free model...this is their problem not mine. Begging me to continue using facebook as a pay service makes it my problem, a problem facebook knows most users will simply dump overboard if ever forced to make a choice.
As a techie, Andrew forgets the first rule of business...never, ever, ever under any circumstances give something away for free. And if you do, just know that the consumer will never, ever, ever under any circumstances expect to pay for it again.
