At WAN 2008 Nikesh Arora, the President of Google Europe, Middle East, Africa and VP of UK operations stated the rise of paid news content on the web.
He even goes as far as to predict the demise of the blogosphere and the continued dependence on internet based commodities (mashable mapping, messaging etc. products).
Y0u can read the article here.
This is especially scary as we move the public internet increasingly over private pipes. Will ISPs start charging tolls to content providers to serve paid content? Will we see a CableTV model deployed here with carriers, broadcasters and content holders?
Google is bold in saying this. If I only have content purchased from Toronto Star, TSN, and ESPN - Why in the world would I need search.
Over and Out
