Tim Bray to Technorati: Start Charging

Tim Bray reports that he visited Technorati on Friday and advised them to shut down their free service. Tim says, "I'm surprised this is controversial," explaining that "the notion that small companies with poor cash-flow should give things away is so 1999."

I'd be sad to see Technorati's free service go away, because I'm just beginning to understand how it works and how it can be used to Do Cool Stuff. But maybe that's the signal that they should start charging — people are figuring out how to make it Do Cool Stuff, which means there's probably some kind of a market there. Tim also points out that a direct-payment system may be more emotionally acceptable than an advertising based system; he'd prefer it that way, and lots of other people feel squeamish about the notion of advertising in RSS-derived services.

It would be nice to have something like Technorati available perpetually for free, and I'd be sad to see it go the way of a pay service. But I'd be sadder to see it coated with advertisements or, worse yet, gone. I know better than to think that we're going to get something for nothing, and the Technorati service has to pay for itself somehow.