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There's a handful of Web sites that are beginning to change their tactics of how to both keep customers happy and still rake in ad revenue. Online newspaper Salon.com is the latest title to announce that it is about to start offering two services -

There's a handful of Web sites that are beginning to change their tactics of how to both keep customers happy and still rake in ad revenue. Online newspaper Salon.com is the latest title to announce that it is about to start offering two services - its standard, free-to-Web collection of daily news and essays, or a $30 a year subscription that strips out all the banner ads and pop-ups, along with extra 'bonus' content. Popular tech-bible ArsTechnica has a similar idea, and it's even an idea that has been looked at for this very site.

Online ad revenues have dropped sharply over the last 12 months, and analysts as well as users have questioned their usefulness since the first banners started appearing in the mid nineties. Popular tech news site News.com started instituting large ads actually placed within the body of its articles a few months ago, to mixed reception, and Salon has also started placing similar ads - say what you want about banners, but even animated ones aren't as intrusive as this 'interactive' new breed.

And now we have the opportunity to pay for the lack of commercials, wrapped up in the nice idea that we are actually getting something extra for our money. We will be effectively handing over money for something that isn't there - or will we?

I hate banner ads and pop-ups as much as the next guy or gal, but I also realise that as meagre a revenue stream as they may be, they still mean cash in the hand. Sites like News.com and Salon.com have staff's bigger than most magazines, and they need to pay those staff, and pay for countless other things. Old fashioned print publishers may grumble about printing costs, but bandwidth and server space can be an expensive proposition too.

The problem is that there is an expectation online for free content. We buy a magazine because it is tangible and in our hands, and a subscription cuts out the middle man and gets that same tangible product to your front door, so why should you pay to sit at your computer and read? Fan sites, run by people with nothing going for them other than a passion for the topic-at-hand have also muddied these waters, because some of the best sites online are just that, run by people who don't expect anything for their hard work. So really, when it comes down to it, why would you pay for an online subscription?

Well, sadly, it's not something that I can easily answer. If I could, I'd be stinking rich and living on the interest. What this quandary does show is that there are definitely two valid sides to this argument, possibly more. With the global downturn in PC sales and the general doldrums being experienced by all aspects of the IT market, we can expect a lot of people to try to find different ways to keep their customers happy, and to keep producing content. I don't think the free-to-Web model is any where near dead, but money-making alternatives to advertising revenue need to be found.
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