re: content There are some who believe that distribution channels are actually more valuable than any content that passes through them. That is, content distr

re: content There are some who believe that distribution channels are actually more valuable than any content that passes through them. That is, content distribution is potentially a higher value business than content creation. Assuming the Internet as a distribution channel, who owns or controls access to it? Rhetorical question. One view is that the price of internet access is the price of "content". If the internet was meant to be a medium for paid content, then why has so much content been shared through it "for free" beginning in the late 80's/early 90's and continuing even today? I certainly do not know. What I remember is that only a minority of the population were avid www users when the public www first appeared in 1993. So, in 1993, why upload "free content" that would otherwise be under paid subscription? For the novelty of it? To jumpstart the www? To entice people to use the www? Regardless of the reason, the end result is that the genie is out of the bottle. The sharing of content "for free" started early on and continued unabated, even as www usage grew. Today, if an internet subscriber seeks "content" she will find it, in large quantities, without ever paying anyone, except her access provider. Greeting users with a deluge of advertising is not going to change the facts: users are continually presented with free content that they once would have had to pay for. The deluge of ads is not a "cost" of the content. It's just a new source of revenue for those who want to play www middleman (who should be very thankful for all the money they have made without ever having had to create any real content). At the same time, as a result the signal to noise ratio has become a serious problem for many www users. (Users are also presented with enormous amounts of fake, garbage "content". That only highlights how open and inexpensive content distribution has become.) It is undeniable that users can block the ads and other garbage and keep the content. The content is not going away. And the www will still keep growing. With the barriers to distribution so low, it is no surprise that users should have to filter out some garbage. The only surprise is how long it's taken them to start doing it. What's nice is that filtering can be automated, in the same way the generation of ads and fake content have been automated. There was time in the history of email before the ubiquitous use of spam filters. And there is a time in the history of the www before the ubiquitous use of ad blockers. That time is coming to a close.