Why do people become so stingy once they’re online? by Andrew Brown.

Apparently one fifth of the global population, or 1.2 billion people, have some sort of internet access. 1.2 billion people. That’s got to be a marketer’s heaven surely. But…

Some people will say there has never been as large a market in the history of the world as these 1.2 billion, but it would be just as true to say that there have never been so many people united by their extreme reluctance to pay for anything.

Indeed. In the early days of the web (I’m talking ten years ago here) selling “premium” content was seen as the pathway to riches online. Until the producers of such content realised that no one (or very few people) were actually prepared to pay for it.

People like Jennifer Ringley may have, however, made a reasonable go out of selling “top shelf” content, but they tended to be the exception, not the rule.

But has anyone made serious money from selling programs, pictures or even music directly to these 1.2 billion people?

It seems not. It appears the real money lies in the source code for software, and the distribution mechanism for online content.

The people who have made fortunes from software have done so by selling to companies.

We’ve seen this principal apply in the blogosphere also. Blogging per se may not be much of a money spinner for those with financial gain in mind, but the opposite can be said when selling a blog.

Look at a few recent examples. Blogging Fingers sold last week for US$6000. NorthxEast sold for $8200, and Career Ramblings for a whopping $20,000 in June!

Is this possibly some sort of variation of the 90-9-1 rule that sees just one percent of online users spending 90 percent of the money?