Free Services: No More!

The age of free services on the Net is fast getting over. It is time we realized that providing a service costs money, which can only come from those using it

Once upon a time, not all that long back, the Internet was a free place. It soon got converted into a place where you got free stuff. There was someone or the other offering anything and everything you wanted for free. There was free connectivity, free PCs, free e-mail, free Web pages, free storage, free software, free SMS, free fax, free jokes…. And every one of them expected to meet their running expenses and also make fabulous profits by displaying strip ads or adding advertisement text to each message.

Unfortunately (or should I say, fortunately), that age of innocence is over. As companies wake up to the hard reality of having to meet costs from sources other than venture funds, free stuff on the Net is fast disappearing.

First came value-added services where you had to pay to get extras. Then came reduced limits on the free service. When that also did not work, many closed down. Others moved on to provide other payable services. Heard of Patriot Automation Projects Pvt Ltd? No? Well what about Caltiger, the free ISP? Type caltiger.com into your browser, and you are taken to Patriot. Caltiger is one of six services on offer. Click to register and you are told that the free service is no longer available.

Take the case of mtnsms. The free SMS service first limited daily SMSs to five, before closing down.

usa.net stopped giving free e-mail and instead opted to become the back-end of amexmail. There, value-added services are reserved for Amex-card holders. Yahoo has started charging for POP3 access or mail forwarding. Hotmail, too, has a value-added option, and both seem to be wanting to move to a completely paid model. Closer home, Rediff is trying to sell a value-added e-mail package.

Sun has announced that StarOffice is going to become a paid software and RedHat is realigning itself to address the needs of larger (read paying) customers. 

Next under the hammer could well be instant messaging. 

It is not as if these services offered no value. But users simply don’t want to pay. Surveys show that lesser and lesser people are willing to pay for online content. But the providers do not really have a choice.

It costs money to maintain any sort of service. And the moment you scale it to a million users, each expecting an assured quality of service, the cost just zooms up. There is no way such a service can run for free for all eternity. 

The faster we realize that, the better it is for all of us. If a service provides a certain value, then be sure that there is an associated cost, indirectly, if not directly. If you want more good roads, you either pay toll, or taxes will have to go up.

Otherwise, good roads just cannot happen.

Like they used to say before the dotcom mania took over, there is no such thing as a free meal for ever. You might get a free taste, but regular meals will cost you money.