Chrome May Make Us Pay

Hopefully they start will a donation model first. Many site often ask for donation first before they charge. Maybe it help to improve some the content.

I'm thinking that although Google seems to be setting up for a direct payment scheme with it's OS, it may not be as a "free will" payment system. At some point, internet consumers will be forced to pay to reach an html address or to receive a video, or story.

Once the large monolith companies gain enough clout, political and economically, they will pretty much force users to pay up. Although the first Direct Payment Systems might be a hundreth of a penny for a story, photo, or search, they will certainly increase as time passed. 

Think about your cable or satellite tv bill. An increase every year after an initial "give away" introductory offer.

Google is really positioned to make direct pay work some time in coming years I would think.

My own research says that users of iPhones or iPads would be happy to pay for an app from any source if they were sure it was functional, that it wasn't going to cause them a problem with updating their Apple-provided software, and that it was convenient to install.

I think the big thing for the Google idea of a "URL store" is that it opens a new market for Google and provides some return on its non-search investments, like Android and now Chrome.  It would also likely advance the cause of cloud computing considerably, but in return it would likely start a trend for charging for premium web offerings.  Google already charges for some premium versions of its software (including its new in-the-cloud photo app), and the idea here seems to be to offer a bunch of stuff at a critical price point of two or three bucks a month.

Tom

 It would be an interesting case study to find out if the iPad/iPhone user would pay for the app on the web. And How would they the web app developers differentiate their app from the ones already available in the  iTunes store, the Android store, RIM store and Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.