The very general case I'm trying to make is this: all across the SaaS World there's reluctance to monetize via advertising, and I think that's a mistake.
This ethic, too, is driven by the idea that there's a professional user and a non-professional user - speaking generally of Tech - and advertising may be OK for the latter, but it's not for the former, and I think that emerges from an incorrect understanding of what Tech is.
We have, then, products build for the non-professional user that are deliberately designed to not be technical, even though what the non-professional user wants to do is Tech Stuff, and designing the technical out severely limits that. And then professional users get Tech without Advertising, which theoretically is ridiculous!
Let me explain that theory. Tech is Media. The payment model for media is different from the payment model for physical goods. This is nothing new. Why have media companies always distributed their goods for free or below cost, and relied on advertising for additional revenues? OK, when someone buys Physical Goods, they've thought it over, and decided that this particular item will do the job, and, by making a purchase, they've committed to that item. Sometimes this works out extremely well. In fact, maybe a lot of the time. Another lot of the time it works out OK. You can tell, too, how committed people are, once they've made a physical purpose, by the way they'll often work hard to make the most of, say, an imperfect but still functional purchase. You can tell how locked in people are when they acquire Physical Goods, too by the difficulty people often face getting out of a bad purchase. But what about access to Media?
In order to understand that, we need to form the right idea about what Media is. It's Information. And what is Information for? It's for decision making when shopping for Physical Goods.
This is a universal truth. It applies to all of Media. But why is some Media ad supported, and others not? Huh? What about that? OK, well, first, authors and publishers have their brands, and everything they do advertises the brand. As an argument, this isn't as arbitrary as it sounds. It's kind of a question of delicacy. What you're trying to analyze when you buy, say, a novel, is how to shape your thoughts and feelings, your style, maybe. Ultimately, it's all physical, but you don't try to make a souffle with a a bulldozer. On the other hand, if you want to make a road up a mountain, a bulldozer is just what you need. In the less delicate world of tools and materials, ad supported media is The Thing.
Still, there's a shift going on. Used to be, if you wanted to work as, say, an accountant, you would read a lot of non-ad supported media, in order to develop the mind and manners of an accountant. Thus for engineering, architecture, management, and so on. But Tech is here, and today such things - whether we realize this or not - are being automated. As media enterprises, these things are becoming less esoteric. You just use the tools. You aren't any longer molding yourself into some sort of otherworldly being.
And, again, if you are doing some kind of planning, you are shopping. You're trying to get your purchase list refined to a point where it's going to work out well.
Advertising is an essential component of that dynamic, is what it comes down to.
What it comes down to is: this is my business model: incorporating advertising into all sorts of Media Products that, currently, "wouldn't dare." And this will be very desirable for the Customer.
And then these products become Free. I defined that before. It doesn't mean we don't get payed for our very high quality services, or SaaS productions. We do. What it means is, our Customers are Free to Use the Product.
