Enjoy your free online movies, music and TV shows on the web while you can. We explore whether the free online content model used by companies like Hulu could disappear as more lucrative paid models flourish.
Did your father ever tell you there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Well, most of today’s industry experts would probably agree with him. The idea of “free” has become extremely controversial in the technology industry, especially in the case of online content. Rumors that favorite show streaming website Hulu will be charging for all of their content has most online-media-viewing junkies scared stiff. Sources for Hulu, after reaping the backlash of complaints, deny the rumors and say turning the service into a pay-only site is just not in the cards. Fair enough, but what happens when Hulu and other sites get desperate? Ad sales are down, magazines and newspapers aren’t selling, and people are only accessing “free” web content. Will these poor economic conditions and lack of advertising force more web publishers into a pay-only frenzy?
Our sources say no. Rafat Ali, Publisher and Editor of the online news site paidContent.org, thinks we’ve come full circle and things will start looking up for online news sites and businesses. The Hulu rumors have been circling for months and Ali thinks there may be a slight truth to all the madness. “If they’re going to charge, it will be for high-value content,” he says. “But realistically, Hulu will not change and the majority of the shows people are watching for free will remain free.” He thinks very few sites will be charging for their content, and if they do then it will be highly specialized content. Ali says that in 2002 people had the same scare and everyone thought they’d have to pay to access sites, but that was just a phase. “The market came back soon after and advertising picked up again,” he says. Ali sees the same forecast for today’s scenario.
Interestingly, Ali believes the real problem lies within our idea of “free.” Now that society is piquing with mobility, people are accessing more media on mobile devices like netbooks and smartphones—Ali reminds us that we pay service fees for these devices, for its apps, and the media content viewed—making the definition of free a little obsolete. He also sees this paradox with eReaders because the eReaders coming out are charging for their eBooks. And even a free eBook from the Web is going onto a very expensive eReader device. Ali thinks the idea that free content is completely and totally “free” is a little too optimistic. “The marginal cost may be zero, but the cost of production isn’t,” he says. “Content creators still need to get paid.”
Similarly, Outsell’s Affiliate Analyst Ken Doctor thinks America is seriously lacking good news sites and news stories because of our nation’s demand for fast and free content. “Americans are getting about 800,000 fewer news stories due to staff cuts,” he says. The mania surrounding free content is taking a toll on the readers. Doctor believes that today’s web content isn’t as high-quality as it should be because of our ubiquitous nature to publish “free” content. He says many people don’t realize that promoting free content is also promoting cheap, low quality content. “Free content only changed the distribution aspect of information, but the problem is the people making that content still need to get paid,” he claims.
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Parts 2 and 3 are linked there as well
The Internet is in it's infancy, and remember that TV channels used to be offered for free as a method to create demand for television sets. Basically they were selling television sets, but they needed content on the medium so that people buying television sets would be interested. They offered it free back then, but now it's something you have to pay for.ht
I could not agree more with you in most of what you said and to add a little it is all about squeezing as much money as they can out of advertisers and consumers. I understand the fact that they need revenue in order to make quality content but not everyone is willing to be trapped the way they want us to be. As long as there are choices, options and competition which is to our advantage we will have the ability to control how we get our programing. If they force us to a content monopoly that will be the day that they will see piracy raise to new heights. I am not saying that all people will stop paying for it but I will just find alternate methods to get what I want just like I am doing right now like I mentioned a few posts up. However I do agree with you...
#2 Some of the largest corporations in the world control traditional content in vertical conglomerates (Fox, Vivendi, GE, Viacom) through owning movie, TV, print and game publishing companies.
#3 They also attempt to control the market horizontally by owning production, distribution channels and retail. All in attempt to control content.
#4 All of that being said - Murdoch realized that it was time to catch up on the Internet and make a move to control content in the newest media market in the same way he has controlled content in other markets.
What we all know is that Fox is on the leading edge of a robust content "land grab" whereby media corporations will buy up and control large parts of the content on the Internet. The biggest player here is Google due to their control of the largest distribution channel - search. This "land grab" will determine who survives in the next 10 years. If you do not control a large percentage of content in the next 10 years then you are out of business.
These corporations are going to buy up content, buy up personal data and lobby for more copy right law changes in order to gain control of the Internet. They see this as a game of survival....
The consumer will be forced to subscribe to everything in a content monopoly much like cable is sold now. They problem that everyone in the industry is having right now is how to come up with a pricing model that will be profitable without fleecing the customer base.
Jess
www.total-privacy.es.tc
Please describe this quality content we keep hearing about Sir Bell, how does it work, do you put coins in it to get a programing? Does it have a 3 strikes out system? Any good wars on?
as for the article mentioning "quality" news is lacking, I call BS. Much of the "news" has always been over hyped mellow drama created to do nothing more then strike emotional cords. It offered nothing in the way of education or information. I'm personally much happier with getting my info from the web and for the record the future of news content isn't going to be one person telling you what to think or what's important. It's going to be twenty or thirty million people tweeting, blogging or posting video from their cells. That's the future of news.
I have placed a really good antenna on my roof and right now i can get 42 OTA channels which provide me with probably a little less than 50% of what I used to watch. The rest I get it online via Hulu or Crackle. OTA custom PVR system = programing with no ads. Hulu and Cracke very limited ads and I do not mind the ads in Hulu or Crackle. They needs those ads to make money but, we as consumers do not get bombarded with useless ads like on cable. It is a fair trade. I do not have PPV, HBO, Showtime etc.. but I never needed those anyway and there is always netflix. My total cost of programing is 40 dollars a month including 5 meg down, 1 meg up connection, netflix and a custom voip solution. If I go via cable the same thing would cost me a lot more than that and I would a bundle of channels I am not even interested in. No thanks..
A much more pressing concern facing internet users today, however, is the growing issue over what is known as "net neutrality," the idea that all internet traffic should flow freely, and be totally accessible to "all the people" of the world. If net neutrality "dies," the question of whether web content should be free-of-charge or not, could very well become moot, as "the elite," those in apparent control of the mass media, desperately seeking "total universal domination," may possibly somehow "create" an incident of some sort, perhaps a type of "cyber-9/11" network attack, and use that "false pretense" as an excuse to LOCK DOWN THE ENTIRE INTERNET, and seize control of it for their own twisted, selfish, greedy, and generally nefarious purposes! And when THAT happens, free or paid web content will NOT even matter to ANYONE anymore...and may heaven help us all! :-(