I like what Christian said. Also, perhaps we should figure out how to
unbundle services and monetize what we can.
On Sep 22, 2013 1:38 PM, "Christian Huitema" <huitema(_at_)microsoft(_dot_)com>
wrote:
Yes. $$$. Nobody makes much/any money off email because it is
so de-centralized. People who build wonderful new applications
build them in a centralized way so that they can control them.
And they want to control them so that they can monetize them.
That is even true of the large email providers who are happy to
provide "free" email in return for being able leverage their
other products and/or "sell" the users and user base to
advertisers.
It is very true that innovation can only be sustained with a revenue
stream. But we could argue that several services have now become pretty
much standardized, with very little additional innovation going on. Those
services are prime candidates for an open and distributed implementation. I
mean, could a WG design a service that provides a stream of personal
updates and a store of pictures and is only accessible to my friends? And
could providers make some business by selling personal servers, or maybe
personal virtual servers? Maybe I am a dreamer, but hey, nothing ever
happens if you don't dream of it!
-- Christian Huitema