Zaccix - 3:17 am on Jan 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

"People will pay for search (or anything else) if they are convinced there is a difference worth paying for."

Although I would stop using Google if they started to charge per-search, what coldcall said above is, sadly, very true. The General Public (TM) could, for example, be convinced to pay for dog excrement if you package it nicely and tell them it can improve their skin. They could just as easily be convinced that paying for Google searches is a good thing.

Charging to use a search engine is like charging to use a library. I'd be annoyed if I were to go into a library one day to look up some info only to be told I need to pay X pence to read a book.