Subscribers discuss magazines which hit the Web in a cloud of kudos, only to disappear a few months later. These editors, coming from a background where ads pay for hardcopy newspaper production, have some fairly grumpy things to say about Web readers who want to peruse their papers' content for free. When the shoe is on the other foot, however, the tune changes. Steve feels that it would be very helpful if he could update his list software, but he does not have a list sponsor to help defray the cost. This modest proposal caused a veritable uproar from the venerable newspaper Web community who just the previous week were complaining about the freeloaders who read their online newspapers without wanting to pay for the privilege.
Nobody wants to pay for content on the web.
Somewhere along the Web yellow brick road, an awful lot of designers have forgotten this well-established principle. The best design is the design that appears simple. The complexity is in the subtlety. Would that the Web world wised up to Occam's Razor of good design.