By Suzann Dodd, Contributor
ETOUR.COM was a site which could have been the most fabulous on the Internet. Log on, tick interests from a menu and sites would be delivered. You did not have to search, you were not given a long list and have to wend your way through it, once you listed your preferences, all you needed to do was log on to etour.com and one after another they would be presented for your enjoyment.
It was a brilliant idea. However, the impetus was making money and as the creators could not figure out how to make money, the site closed.
Making money has been the downfall of 'dot coms'. To hold finance above education or entertainment must fail in a media that owes its existence to freeness.
The Internet was built on freeware, shareware, open source and the altruism of users. Attempts to wring money out of it will fail.
Sure, there are porno sites you pay to visit and web hostings which demand rent. There are even private sites which demand entry fees, but the majority of users are not going to put their hands in their pockets with much alacrity. And another dot com collapses, another IT venture fails.
If people had to pay to listen to radio the media would have died. The same with television. That developers figured out how to get paid from another source (commercials) allowed the proliferation of the media and the subsequent introduction of pay TV (cable). Had Cable been introduced in the '50s, there would not be much television today.
As late as 1996, the vast number of Americans were just outside of the web. The press to capitalise on such a fragile media, could only result in devastation. It is not that dot coms were or are not profitable. It is not that there was or is no market for sites such as etour. It was simply that ventures were begun without understanding and with profit as the motive.
Suzann Dodd is an attorney and writer.
