Yahoo tightens noose on Geocities

the end of FREE continues...

[rcjordan]

Got a hot geocities site? Well, if it hits 3GB (the current limit) per month, you're gonna pay. Man, I can hear those celeb/fan sites screaming from here.

Yahoo sent notices to GeoCities members who use more than 3GB per month of data-transfer space for a Web site, saying that to keep such sites continuously running, members should join one of its paid Web-hosting services: the recently launched GeoCities Pro or GeoCities Webmaster.

"Shortly, all free member sites transferring more than the allowable data limit will be disabled for portions of the day until usage falls to within the prescribed limits," the notice read.

story here [news.cnet.com]

[cyril kearney]

I really can't get excited about Geocities placing a limit on how much lunch is included in a 'free lunch.'

Not too long ago one of the pioneers of web communities Bianca's was at the point of extinction because they clunge to 'unlimited bandwidth' for site members.

Guess what, a lot of people were abusing this 'free lunch' too.

What's a vendor to do. Much of the cost of these sites are borne by advertisers. With ads revenue tanking, it seems to me that it is better to make the free lunch hogs pay than to go out of business.

3gb is a lot of free bandwidth. This doesn't appear to me as 'tightening a noose' at all but as a responsible way to manage a scarce resource for the greatest good.

[pickles]

*l* ....Biancas isn't out of the woods yet.....which leads me to wonder if the Geocities news is also symptomatic of deeper problems such as the (now obviously outdated and financially dangerous) belief that money comes from nowhere (angel funding, big bank loans) instead of building a biz on sweat labor and reinvesting in the biz and growing it slowly. It's very difficult to start charging for services when one's been giving away for free. Much easier to raise a price
after charging a token amount from the beginning.