In general, I believe that market forces bring the price down of access to information as processing power increases and transportation costs go down. The phrase, "Information wants to be free" is one expression of this thinking. There is much thinking around this topic.
One company frequently brought up on the topic of "free" is a personal favorite, Craigslist. So, I was surprised when I read today that CL is beginning to block spiders and search engine bots. A few months ago, CL had asked Oodle to stop listing CL listings.
CL is well known to not be greedy. So what is the reason for this? I think it’s the issue of attention scarcity? Umair agrees with me.
Cem Sertoglu 
To be honest, I feel like information needs to have a home. More power to communities with a strong brand (aka Craiglist) to pronounce that that home does not always have to be Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. (Don’t get me wrong, I like going to the GYM, and I do it every day, but I welcome the variety).
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