The pendulum swings back to “paid for” content

It looks like the swing towards “ad funded everything” is quickly coming to an end, and there is a trend back in the direction of selling products and services to users.

“Ad funded” for many businesses really meant “shareholder funded in the hope of later monetization”. Meanwhile, people actually selling things were ignored – that was thought too “dirty” or “difficult”. However, in difficult economic conditions, remember the Yorkshire expression: “where there’s muck there’s brass”.