Yahoo! Thinking About Charging For Services
from the yeah,-so? dept
News.com is making a big deal out of a report that Yahoo! is thinking about charging for some services. Even the article admits, though, that Yahoo! has been thinking about this for years. It’s nothing new. In fact, Yahoo! already does charge for premium services, like additional mail space, or Yahoo! stores. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with charging for some of those services. However, if they start trying to charge for content, I doubt it will do particularly well. I also think Yahoo! is smart enough to realize what not to charge for. So, while it makes a good headline, I think this one is mostly non-news.
Comments on “Yahoo! Thinking About Charging For Services”
Says a lot of nothing
This story, unfortunately, doesn’t really say much of anything. It says that yahoo might charge for premium services in the future, talk about what it charges for now, reflects on the success of subscription services on the internet, and that’s about it. It doesn’t even really define what premium services are, not that I could find, at least. Oops, upon reviewing, there is ONE sentence:”..value-added services related to music on the Web, enhanced research tools and message boards, and even some proprietary content..” That’s it for the whole story. I don’t see a problem with charging, just, as Mike said, they know what to keep free. I mean, it’s common sense – you start charging for the same thing someone else is giving away for free, and, well, you’re dead in the water.