Is This the Future of the Web?

[sburtchin]

I was reading one of the threads here (FDISK replacement? (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=53510)) and saw a link to the Rannish website, so I thought I'd take a look to see if anything changed. That page has a link to the XOSL FAQ. I have'nt read those for a while, so I clicked there and the next page that comes up is the Yahoo Groups website telling me I need to log in:confused:. Tried again, same thing. Registration appears to be free, but not 100% sure of that. The whole process required me to register twice, enter my password about 25 times, also register as a member of the XOSL group (they needed my email account too), go through all my account preferences (for both accounts) and uncheck about two dozen optional categories of stuff they can send me updates about, enter special codes at least 8 times, activate two accounts (I have 4 emails!), they created a new email account for me at "yahoo.com" (I never asked for that - they probably sent messages there too), and about 40 minutes after first clicking on the XOSL link (had to do that many times) I am finally able to view the FAQ's:mad: :mad: :mad:.

Are we moving toward paying seperately for each bit of information we view:( :confused:?

[Budfred]

Well, yes... That has been true for a while and the only thing that holds them back is the fact that most people won't pay for it... As soon as someone has something that enough people will pay for, it will be replicated by all sorts of different companies...

[mjc]

Are we moving toward paying seperately for each bit of information we view:( :confused:?

Have been ever since the Web moved from being something that was used by the pocket protector brigade to being used by John Q. And once businesses got involved and started turning it into a giant shopping mall, the pace has picked up.

Information is a commodity...

There is also the fact, that there are a large number of immature idiots that haunt the web, trying to do as much damage as they can. With that in mind, in order to protect content, many developers are moving to places that offer some sort of 'protection' over running mailing lists/forums/chat rooms on their own servers...it is a hell of a lot harder to take out Yahoo that it is to take a small co-lo in Lower Hedgerow, Neb. And in order to provide that protection, one must learn to jump through hoops...and if you don't have a Yahoo account, there are a lot of them at Yahoo (or Goggle).

I have seen some fairly recent advice to have a Yahoo and Google account already set up, for using in cases like this. And possibly a Hotmail one too...(and some say a YouTube account wouldn't be a bad idea--there are starting to be a rather surprising number of tech related YouTube postings).

[PrntRhd]

The change to a money-driven Web is not surprising, that was the lesson learned after the DotCom implosion...you have to have a business model that makes economic sense (makes money somehow) to stay in business, and if they can sell you a service rather than give it away for free it makes sense for them to do so.
The alternate business model is to have the service paid for with advertising, so Google or Yahoo pays you and you can provide the service with what they paid for the advertising.