Yesterday I wrote that a potential MSFT-NEWS deal is all about GOOG’s splitting of the profit pie (sorry - no links - writing on BB). As I have been thinking more about this, the most striking thing to me is how many people seem to dismiss any claim to a payment by content owners out of hand with statements such as “they should be glad that Google is sending traffic their way.” But let’s consider an alternative universe for a moment. In that universe Google started from day one to apply the an AdSense-like profit splitting to AdWords. If you want to participate as a site owner you just add a file to your server. Now whenever Google makes money on a click through on a results page that contains content from your server you get a tiny fraction of that (along with everyone else on that page). As enough accumulates you get paid. In this alternative universe would a lot of the same people assert that Google should stop paying content providers? I really don’t think so and that’s why I believe ideas like this cannot be dismissed outright. Google could have (and still might) design a system that splits search economics differently. It is fascinating to imagine how well off the Wikimedia foundation would be in such a world. They almost certainly would not have to run ads asking for donations!
