Over a decade ago, before the internet was widely available, I ran a multiline BBS that was extremely popular - the lines into it were almost constantly busy, even in the middle of the day when the rates for long distance callers were rather high.
I then attempted to go to a pay for use model, charging a dime an hour for use.
95% of the users stopped calling. The could spend $10 an hour for the phone call, but couldn't pay a dime an hour for the system.
I can also quote Scott McCloud, who wrote "Understanding Comics". When he gets into the failed micropayment system, he says "If something on the internet is free, it will have many users, but as soon as you charge, they go away" He had some nice illustrations to go along with that as well.
Over a decade ago, before the internet was widely available, I ran a multiline BBS that was extremely popular - the lines into it were almost constantly busy, even in the middle of the day when the rates for long distance callers were rather high.
I then attempted to go to a pay for use model, charging a dime an hour for use.
95% of the users stopped calling. The could spend $10 an hour for the phone call, but couldn't pay a dime an hour for the system.
I can also quote Scott McCloud, who wrote "Understanding Comics". When he gets into the failed micropayment system, he says "If something on the internet is free, it will have many users, but as soon as you charge, they go away" He had some nice illustrations to go along with that as well.