[flyinglizard]

IBM's XT also cost nearly $6k when it debuted (quick Google search, maybe I'm wrong). We get so much value for free now that paying directly for all of that would be a huge step back. Roughly speaking, Google makes something like $120bn a year, spread across 1bn users. Would you pay $120 for using Google a year? Realistically though you'd pay much more because there's no chance Google would charge a person in the developing/3rd world what it charges a US citizen. It's not unthinkable to get a bill of $500 per user in USA to get these services.

This is one side of the coin, the other side is that for economic activity to take place, advertising must be available. People need to be informed of services and consumption needs to be encouraged to grow economic activity. How would that happen if companies locked down their platforms altogether? Would P&G, J&J and all the other conglomerates just shrivel and die in a world where they can't access consumers?

[rayiner]

Attributing the decreased costs of computers to the rise of advertising-based business models is quite a stretch. As far as I can tell, advances in manufacturing technology and the broadening of the market base is what made that possible.

As to Google--I'd pay $500 per year not to have it constantly barrage me with reminders to use Chrome instead of Edge (so it can steal my apparently valuable browsing data). But, 90% of everything is crap. Crap is what the market wants, whether it's pop music or USA Today or advertising-based software. Who am I to argue?

[flyinglizard]

> Attributing the decreased costs of computers to the rise of advertising-based business models is quite a stretch. As far as I can tell, advances in manufacturing technology and the broadening of the market base is what made that possible.

The Internet was built on an advertising monetization model, and you could argue that the penetration of computing devices to our lives wouldn't be nearly as far reaching without the Internet. In other words, non-tech people buy iPhones to access the ad-sponsored Google, YouTube and Instagram.

[dragonwriter]

> The Internet was built on an advertising monetization model

No, it wasn't; the internet was built long before that. The advertising monetisation model didn't become significant until the internet was established as a popular mass venue.

Which makes sense; the audience drew advertising, not the other way around.

[flyinglizard]

Change that to "the commercial internet" then - not talking about the DARPA/Usenet/early www universe, but rather anything post 96-97 or so. It's either ecommerce or advertising ever since then.

[CaptSpify]

Why not talk about usenet/early www? Just because you can sweep it away doens't mean it didn't exist

[rayiner]

Or AOL.

[Jedi72]

I have abandond Google and exclusively use DuckDuckGo. If Google wasnt giving search away for free to take users to the cleaners behind their back, there would actually be healthy competition in search and you would definitely not need to pay $500/yr.

[nicoburns]

People wouldn't pay that much, google would just make less profit...

[berbec]

I do pay Google exactly $120/year: I have my own GSuite Business account.

Think I can get them to stop datamining/tracking me?