Here’s what I don’t understand.
People try so hard to couch the Web 2.0, blogosphere, etc. thing as a real business, but when a real business, with an actual revenue model, makes a smart and logical business decision to protect that revenue, a lot of those same people cry foul.
How in the world have we gotten to a place where eBay saying no to Google’s checkout service is lame, yet AOL giving away its services to broadband users is a good idea?
If you want to know why many real businesses don’t take the blogosphere seriously, this is Exhibit No. 1.
No right thinking business with the dominant market share eBay has would allow a competitor like Google, who is also rumored to be about to enter the auction market, to walk into its store and sell services to its customers.
The entire Web 2.0 movement and many desperate older web companies have climbed on the back of the ad dollar. Ad revenue simply cannot bear that burden for the long haul.
Sometimes I feel like the Web 2.0 groupthink is “if I can’t have a sustainable revenue model, then you can’t either!”
