Sorry that I didn't post a column for yesterday, homework is timeconsuming :-(

Internet ads are a strange concept, aren't they?

I use NetZero, a free, advertiser supported internet service, so I constantly have a [Insert proper explitive here] ad bar on my screen. I'm not really annoyed by it, but some of the ads are weird.

Here's an idea, with a experiment to prove it. Every time that you see an on-line ad for a free service, make a tally mark. At the end of a set amount of time, count the tallies. I bet that you will have a lot of tallies.

How do these free services make any money? Advertising other free services, of course. Occasionally, a service that actually charges money is advertised.

This is crazy. If free services wouldn't advertise, then far fewer ads would be shown. I estimate a 75% decrease, but I'm just a good guesser. This means that, say, for every four Angelfire sites that you visit, you would see roughly the number of ads for one site. So if my site was one of the three without advertisments, I'd get a free site with no strings attached. Or I'd have three out of four odds that I wouldn't have to see Juno ads. Or a Web.com toolbar. Or a "ZeroPort".

If only telvision advertised free services...

If you would like to bug me about my economic beliefs and strategies, please click here.