Chris

Now, flipping sides of the fence, look what the tube sites have done to other industries. Whenever sites start offering too much for free, a huge paradigm shift takes place. It’s a matter of other sites adapt and fit into that shift.

One indication of sites giving a product or service for free, when it was initially not free, is that the operators are losing money or their model and not working. With the economy hurting, most people are only able to afford free, which is a sign of the times.

When a company starts to give it’s formally paid product away for free, people will wonder if something is wrong with that product. This stunt by match says that they are in trouble. They’ve been on the chopping block already.

The real questions are: how long can companies maintain giving away products or services for free? How does that affect the service? What does it do to the quality of the service? The ones that will make it will be the ones that can sustain quality, features and remain active and not grow stale. The battle then becomes how to monetize the site in order to sustain it.

It will be interesting to see how many other sectors subscribe to this philosophy and how long it will last. What happens when people start losing the Internet because of economic hardships? Will there be a resurgence in brick and mortar operations?

I believe we are living in a pivotal point in history and, at the very least, it will be interesting to see how things unfold.