As a webmaster, I have become intimately aware of the most often used keywords used in search engines as they may apply to my own website. Each month, one word consistently ranks in the Top100... that word is "Free"!

Even as a commercial webmaster, I am always on the lookout for "free" too, wherever I can find it. Free services, free scripts, free content... these are the freebies that I search for. I imagine that you also search for "free", though the "free" things that you look for may not be the same "free" things that I search for.

Though the Internet is still a relatively new medium, the foundations of the future have been laid down and are being laid down on a daily basis. To see the future, you must clearly understand the present in terms of the past!

The Internet was created as a communication and information tool for government and business. In the process of the development of the Internet, business began to see expanded profit potential by turning two tools of business --- the computer & the Internet --- into an additional form of entertainment for the consumer.

In recognizing that the Internet is a form of entertainment for the consumer, it should become clear as to what the future of the Internet will look like.

Just as radio and television before it, the cost of creating entertainment will shift from the consumer to the advertiser.

Those who complain of too much advertising on the web already, will continue their perilous slide into the pits of madness. Advertising is here to stay.

Businesses that serve the consumer with products and services on the web will continue to do just that. The primary difference will be that in the future, the consumer will continue to enjoy more and more "free" stuff as businesses develop more opportunities to shift their costs of production and profit away from the wallets of the consumer and into the wallets of advertisers.

In the digital age, our computers have become our televisions and our ISP connections have become our cable providers. Instead of movies, television series and game shows, our entertainment medium has become the Internet.

The big difference between television and the Internet is that with our television we are approaching 100 channels, and with the Internet we have millions of channels to choose from! With the Internet, we no longer have to accept what the cable channels offer us for a selection, but we can select all of our own content 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We are finally able to customize all of our own entertainment at anytime!

You can either get free content and let the advertiser pay for your ability to get the content without a direct cost to you, or you can pay a monthly service premium to access the content without advertising.

But first, take a moment and realize that The Disney Channel first appeared as a pay-channel, and then Disney discovered that they could earn more from offering it free to the public and letting advertisers shoulder the costs of production and profit.

Take a look around, the products and services that you used to pay for as related to the Internet are beginning to become "free" products and services.

Welcome to the future of "Free" on the Internet!