The Business of Things

The story of the Internet of Things is different from the story of the other Internet

There really is only one business model on the modern Internet, and that’s advertising. People have refused to subscribe to services or pay for content. Instead, advertising supports the services that sit underneath almost everything we do on the Web. Think for a minute about how your day-to-day experience of the Web would be different if Google charged a monthly subscription fee for its search service, or used a micro-payment based approach to charge on a search-by-search basis.

It seems almost inconceivable doesn’t it? Your mind is probably rebelling at the idea of each and every search being a thing that is chargeable, that costs you actual money.In the same way that the move from dial-up, where you were very much aware that every minute you spent online was chargeable, to broadband, where you now pay a flat monthly fee, affected how you used the Internet; the lack of apparent cost changes how you use services and consume content. “All-you-can-consume” changes not just the amount of content you consume, but the way you use the content.

A series of almost accidental decisions and circumstances have led to a world…