Pamela Poole

Web 2.0 was all about social and free, kind of like the Haight in the 60s. We tossed our inhibitions to the wind and let it all hang out. Alas, groovy people, the pendulum is swinging, as it inevitably must do. A sure sign: I had to pay WordPress money to change the CSS of this blog.

What a bummer, man.

Granted, it’s only 15 bucks for the privilege to play with my CSS for a year, which is more than reasonable, considering the service that WordPress has rendered society. We really do owe them and the many other free platforms for human expression an enormous debt of gratitude. But gratitude don’t pay the bills.

Social is here to stay, but free is over, and so is Web 2.0.

Frankly, I’m very OK with that. I’m tired of the clone wars, and this turn of events may put an end to that and give me something else to read on Mashable too.

Think about it. If you have 50 free social whatever aggregators to choose from, and suddenly they all realize there is no more funding on the horizon and they have to start charging for their services if they want to keep the servers running, users are going to become much more discriminating about which products they use. Natural selection will occur, and only the companies able to offer the highest quality and most benefit for users will survive. In the end, the users win because what they get is a better product. Theoretically. There are always exceptions (Microsoft, homo sapiens…).

Ruthless, I know, but ladies and gentlemen, you are now leaving Eden. Welcome to the jungle.

Unfortunately, all of this is happening just when people are losing jobs and homes. Another minor obstacle, which many have pointed out, is that people don’t like to start paying for something that they’re used to having for free.

What happens at times like these, when disposable income suddenly dries up? Well, you don’t dispose of it. You only buy the things you absolutely need. And thanks to the free love fest, there are a lot of us who need our social apps and the other tools and toys we’ve come to depend on. We are hooked. So, though it may be a little harder to rack up the new users if they have to pay, chances are good that those of us who are already users will pay the price, if we can.

So the tech world waits with bated breath to see whether Facebook and Twitter and other Web 2.0 heavyweights are going to get business models. Investors are only interested in startups that are already making money. And startups are facing the challenge of finding business models that will cover their costs without pissing off their users.

The good news for startups? Your competitors should start dropping like flies. The bad news for startups? If you can’t find good people with the time and motivation to build your product without funding, you could be screwed. The good news for startups and everybody else? All this turmoil has created an opportunity for entrepreneurs to put their heads together and pool their resources. Share the love and make some cool new stuff.

Andrew Chen on the end of Web 2.0