On the Internet today there is a constant push by people to receive more for less, and as a result it is very easy to get a hold of vast quantities of information, media, and entertainment for little or no cost. This has resulted in many, if not most, users assuming the Internet as a big free storehouse of whatever they want.
For a while this economy seemed sustainable as hardware and bandwidth prices dropped dramatically, and investors poured money into different sites during the dot com boom. But many web sites focussed more on getting visitors than building a sustainable business model, which is part of what lead to the subsequent bust.
This difficulty in monetization has persisted through to today, with only a few of the Internet's biggest sites actually turning a profit. The rest, like Facebook, rely mainly on investor's capital to fill the gap, like Facebook, or the support of a profitable mother company such as with Google and YouTube.
What does this...