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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (37636)	11/27/1998 11:56:00 AM
From: per strandberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

SB, so, where is all this profit going to come from? ;-) Not from me. I got fed up about waiting forever for the fancy,moving,flashing ads to load. Did a search for ad-filters and found one free and one commercial ($20). Both worked satisfactorily. Now I'm using Yahoo and other sites without even seeing the ads. Great for me but worthless hits being counted for Yahoo. If this becomes more widespread, web ads might loose some of its appeal.

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (37636)	11/27/1998 12:10:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

>>>>>so, where is all this profit going to come from?<<<<< I see your point. If we analogize web enterprises to non-web enterprises, there seem to be two categories of sources that I use, non-profit organizations that are analogous to libraries, don't charge user fees and are funded by taxpayers or break even; and for-profit organizations that are analogous to magazines, charge user fees and make a profit. I prefer free, of course, but I will pay if I have no choice and the service is essential and valuable. Once I used Westlaw for free at law school, it was very hard to give it up. But at $4 -$8 a minute, it is very hard to justify, except in infrequent cases. Much of the information on Westlaw is public domain (law cases), but the law reviews and legal encyclopedias are not, and I understand that the publishers are in the business to make money and don't want to give the information away. I still think professionals and business people are willing to pay for unique information and excellent search engines. CobaltBlue