The end of the free lunch--again

Thanks to Stephen Hill for pointing me to this unsigned opinion piece in The Economist.  The writer says few companies can sustain themselves with revenues from internet advertising:

... Now reality is reasserting itself once more, with familiar results. The number of companies that can be sustained by revenues from internet advertising turns out to be much smaller than many people thought, and Silicon Valley seems to be entering another “nuclear winter” ...

Link:  The Economist.  --Dennis

Comments

[Thom]

Such a sad article to read when a crown jewel of Seattle (The P.I.) is embarking on this type of model.

[Barrett Golding]

Dennis, the article you quote is not the article you link to. the quote's from:
Making the web pay | The end of the free lunch—again
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13326158

but your link goes to an equally fine article:
Six years in the Valley
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13337910

the latter contains this gem:
"Jaron Lanier, a Valley pioneer, saw behind the Web 2.0 totem of “collective intelligence” an insidious “digital Maoism” that suppressed individuality. Linda Stone, a former Apple and Microsoft executive, observed an unhealthy trend towards “continuous partial attention”, as people spent less time focusing on a single thing or person because they were constantly scanning so many other things—from Facebook to e-mail and their phones—for fear of missing out on some social opportunity.

Perhaps most dangerously, Web 2.0 still had only one business model, advertising, and the Valley was refusing to admit that only one company (Google) with only one of its products (search advertising) had proved that the model really worked."

so thanks for links to both.