IAC chairman claims

The days of free surfing are fast coming to a close with a payed internet just five years away, according to the chairman and chief executive of IAC. 

Barry Diller, who runs IAC, which operates a collection of more than 30 Internet sites which produce $1.5 billion a year in revenue said that the world wide wibble is passing from its free days into a paid system.Talking to the Advertising 2.0 conference in Manhattan he said that not every single thing will be paid for, but anything of value.

The only reason it has been free so far is because of "an accident of historical moment that will be corrected," he said. This is a period of "creative chaos" that will span the next three to five years. This will change as the big player decide to sit behind pay walls even it if means cutting back on hits. Diller said people will pay, if it is quality they're buying.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/14212/1/                                                                                                                                                                              

I hope if this is true that prices are reasonable.

Trying to get people to pay for things on the internet is like making a dam with a bunch of holes in it. Anyone who wants to avoid it can and will.

Not to mention when people are conditioned into getting something for free, it is EXTREMELY hard to convince them to start paying for it. They don't just sit there and take it.

This will fail miserably.

wow, that will cause free sites to get a quadrazillion hits. I know I will skip any pay site. I only get free porn now.

I think you don't take in the context of Barry's comments. I work for IAC, BTW, so here's some clarification:

Barry is merely pointing to the fact that anything that's worthwhile will be monetized. That does not mean that you have to distinctly take out a credit card to purchase going on the website.

For example, your paying at this very second to be on VGChartz.com. You view pre-roll ads, view banner ads, and other such ads. This keeps VGChartz afloat. If there were no ads, VGC would struggle to improve, but fortunately VGC is now Brett's fulltime job.

The fact is that more sites will go toward monetization in some way. Nothing (and I repeat nothing) on the internet is free. As long as there's a server somewhere, someone is paying for it. Some may give the guise of free, but some such companies (like a Twitter) may struggle to continue despite the userbase...Why? Costs outstrip income. As new, more bandwith-intensive services come to market, sites offerings' will cost more to produce, requiring some sort of revenue generation.

Even Wikipedia has to have revenue generation. Albiet it's done with donations, but if you look at the amounts given, you'll see that millions of USD are spent to help improve and maintain the site...For many, even Wikipedia is not free.

If you want to see the next wave of game monetization:

Imagine Halo 4 launching for free. No cost other than paying $3 for the disc. Rather than pay $60 upfront, you pay $3. How do you pay for it? 1, 30 second video ad per game session, and optional content that is available for cash. If you don't want to pay for it, you can take 10 minutes to fill out a survey, or sign up for an affiliate marketing offer.

That's still monetized, but your getting Halo 4 for $3. Would that be better or worse than what's currently offered?

I really don't think that is what he is talking about. I thinking he is talking about premium style sites significantly different than the current business model for most websites. Historically speaking, this has not at all been an effective business model online.