Would you like to pay for your surf?

A normal professional's work day today begins in the morning clamoring to get to work. Once there, there is this cooling off period, although varying, but there for sure to begin to look at news, sports, email etc. A lot of websites are 'favorites' and browsers like chrome do put them up for your easy retrieval on a new tab. 

A basic assumption there is that most of this material is free. Yes there are those ads, but either we don't care about them, or we just install a browser plugin to remove all the ads from a page. And of course Google makes its billions from all the ad revenue you can think of.

And then recently New York Times announced that it will begin charging for its online content. Wall Street already has a subscription model around its online content, and we've been hearing all the stuff about  SaaS business models where everyone charges for everything they sell.

So is this the beginning of the end of free stuff? Is the advertising model kinda running out of steam? 

I think this is the next wave of evolution on the internet. This appears to be the common ground that the e-world would have to come to with the traditional world. A world where you get what you pay for. A world where money has to be earned. 

I don't have anything against the advertising model. I think it is great for a certain types of the websites, where the content is pretty much commoditized, and a subset of the internet population comes there.  But if a service is differentiated and there is a demand for it, the company now seems to be in a position to charge premium for it. 

A major reason for this is the huge growth in internet users from across the globe, and their increasingly varying needs from the internet. Going forward, Internet will begin to resemble our own real world. where some things are free, and some you gotta pay for. 

So I think its time for us to get ready to make that choice. Do you want to pay for your surf or get what you don't want to pay for? I'd say, brace yourself. The internet is evolving into a new more self aware beast, and there is no more free lunch...

Nice guys finish last

That's not true. Its not the nice guys, but the guys who thought they were nice, but realized mid way that they kinda caught the wrong train.

Now, catching train is something entirely dependent on you. You bought the tickets, you looked up the train name on the display, you misread the platform number, and you didn't check if it was finally the right train to have caught.

Now all this while you thought you could never catch the wrong train, and you were soo damn proud of it. Call it the law of mortality catching up with you. So now, even when you never had the intention of catching the wrong train, you pretty much laid your own trap. by doing the things you did.

Like Monica says in friends: "What were you thinking!!!" and I agree. What was the nice-guy-who-never-caught-the-wrong-train thinking when he actually himself caught the wrong train!?? There is no answer I think. I guess, he should have known better.

So even if he didn't want to, even if he never thought all along the way that this is what he is doing, he still did it! and the only person responsible for him landing up in the wrong train is him!!!

So whats the end result? he had to catch another train back, buy a new ticket, and return to the platform, and this time, at least try to catch the right train. And in the process, he finishes last.

Q.E.D.

Saamna: Another loong back written poem

पिछले कुछ दिनों से, नाजाने मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

जब से पतझड़ का नाग मेरे सूखे पत्तों को डसने लगा है

तब से शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

यह शीश मेरा, जो पहले नादानी में सदा ही ऊंचा रहता था,

अब ना जाने क्यों उसके सामने झुकने लगा है..

हाँ... शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है..

वो सुबह के सूरज की लाली

वो रात के चाँद की चांदनी 

वो सागर के गहरे, नीले, विशाल रंग के बजाय

अब धरती का फीका भूरा रंग मुझको दिखने लगा है...

ज़रूर मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

वो कागज़, जिसपर पहले सपनों के महल बना करते थे,

अब उसी कागज़ पे - कभी लाल, तो कभी पीली स्याही से

मेरे दिल का हाल बयान होने लगा है..

क्यूँ ऐसा मुझे होने लगा है?

लेकिन जब खेलने लगता हूँ इन्ही ख्यालों को गोद में लेकर,

तब समझ में आता है कि और कुछ नहीं, 

बस ज़िन्दगी से मेरा सामना होने लगा है...

हाँ... बस यही तो मुझे होने लगा है.