DISQUS

An interesting thought. I personally believe it is because they resemble the "put a block into a slot" style games - and babies seem preoccupied with inserting things into slots, especially their own mouths.

Of course, your hypothesis could be tested. It would make a nice experiment.

Interesting take on the freetardation of software. I think there is common ground between you and Hank, though. VCs are drawn to "free" because they want to hit the lotter; if they hit the lottery, the economics are enormously in favor of the VC. Google, who won the lottery, gets *far* more money from advertisers than it spends to attract and keep users. The market is flooded with short-term plays where VCs spend *far* more money to attract and keep users than it gets from advertisers. Obviously it's not sustainable, but VCs expect low success rates.

The net result is that consumers may end up skitting from one free offer to the next (much like some saavy consumers have done with credit card borrowing). Consumers will learn to mistrust companies and software, and treat them as, at best, temporary tools to be used and discarded.

I presonally believe this is unhealthy, for the simple reason that relationships never form, knowledge never deepens, and efficiencies are never realized.

OTOH, many of these services probably won't make sense in 10 or even 5 years. And, it's probably a good lesson for the public to learn - that you really shouldn't trust corporations anyway. Last but not least, 90% of internet software is unnecessary and frivolous, trying to "carve out a niche" where no need previously existed. The problem is we don't know which 90%, and the market is doing this R&D relatively efficiently.

http://javajosh.blogspot.com

Clever.