If there were functioning micro-payments system on the net I suspect this would have turned out a lot different. Customers would be less angry paying $1/month f

If there were functioning micro-payments system on the net I suspect this would have turned out a lot different. Customers would be less angry paying $1/month for the service (230M users, ~700M in costs per quarter ~= $1/user/month). They might even be able to cut that by 75% or more if they just stuck to their core competency, which is communications, not advertising.