Market Value of Web Pages

At 6:51 PM 11/9/95, Bill Frantz wrote:

>BTW - I don't think we should be talking about a penny/page cost because it
>is way too high for the current market.  For example, my copy of Applied
>Cryptography V2 cost about $.067/page AND came with the media to keep it
>"forever".  My (used) copy of Snow Crash cost closer to a penny/page and
>also came with the media.  I would think that somewhere between 1/100 to
>1/10 of a penny/page is closer to the current market value of the page
>content.

With all due respect to Bill--his mention of agorics tells me he knows
something about computational ecologies and markets--, there is no
reasonable way to say what price is "closer to the current market value of
the page content," except by what the market will bear!

Yes, a paperback novel is a penny a page or so. But a 5-page consultant's
report that sells for $2000 has a "market value" to someone of $400 a page.
You can all think of all kinds of other examples.

Closer to home, a copy of "Penthouse" which sells for $5 and which has
perhaps 10 photographs of "interest" to someone can be said to roughly have
a value of $.50 per Web page of equivalent material. "Penthouse" and
"Playboy," to name just two examples, have "members only" Web pages, and
they are apparently doing OK financially. (Other "members only" Web pages
may also be doing well....it is _these_ Web pages that provide an example
of paid access in contrast to the some other examples, where even a
fraction of a cent per page is too much.)

Personally, I've yet to pay for a Web page. Too much "free" stuff, too much
stuff coming out of the firehose. (And a lot of JPEGs from the "members
only" page are being "liberated" and posted--often through remailers--to
the alt.binaries.pictures.* "free" newsgroups, or placed on other Web
pages.)

I expect this to someday change, and to pay for some things at a fraction
of a cent per hit, some other things for a few cents a hit, and maybe even
some things at dollars per hit.

--Tim May


Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

>>BTW - I don't think we should be talking about a penny/page cost because it
>>is way too high for the current market.  For example, my copy of Applied
>>Cryptography V2 cost about $.067/page AND came with the media to keep it
>>"forever".  My (used) copy of Snow Crash cost closer to a penny/page and
>>also came with the media.  I would think that somewhere between 1/100 to
>>1/10 of a penny/page is closer to the current market value of the page
>>content.

>I expect this to someday change, and to pay for some things at a fraction
>of a cent per hit, some other things for a few cents a hit, and maybe even
>some things at dollars per hit.

The maths of ecash and web pages gets very interesting very quickly. If you
charge per page of a web server, $0.01 a page and you happen to be doing this
on a million-hits-a-day web server then you machine is earning you $10,000 
ecash bucks a day. How much is it to buy hardware and a link and set up
a nice web site everyone wants to visit? If it was left running you'd collect
$3,650,000 ecash bucks anually. That is just for browsing. Sales on top of that
via ecash (very low overheads relative to physical means) would mean very
high profits. 1% of browsers spending US$50 is US$500,000 a day, or per year
it is US$182,500,000. Not bad for an outlay of a couple of fast SPARCs and
a quick net link and some staff to maintain it.

If you toss arguements like this at some of the sites that would be viable for
the hit numbers and then explain the only way that will occur is if the crypto
laws are repealed, you will create a lot more lobbiers annoying their reps
for the cause. ecash without good crypto is like the Federal Reserve
deliverying cash with open pickup trucks. Or doing credit card purchases on
postcards.

Cheers,
Mark
mark@lochard.com.au