Bill Gross can send each of his free computer owners ads for precisely what he or she is most likely to buy. In this way Gross hopes to make back his costs and then some. The Web is full of sites that give away valuable stuff free in the hope of making it back in advertising. Slate , notoriously, for starters. And this practice is not unknown in other media, either.
Television programming is still mostly free to the user.
And even newspapers and traditional magazines don't begin to cover their costs from what readers pay. Those readers are heavily subsidized by advertisers hoping to sell them stuff. What's notable about the Web is the profusion of free offerings that go way beyond mere editorial content filling in the space between ads. There's an online store called Onsale atCost selling computer equipment at the true wholesale price. Onsale atCost may be the only store in the world to hire PricewaterhouseCoopers to document that it is not going to make a profit.