Goldston maintains that users become accustomed to the ZeroPort, which also displays applications like stock and news tickers. We took something that could have been a nuisance and made it something you become dependent on. It's difficult to generate that much in ad revenue per month. A free service is something that people might use as a backup, but nothing that professionals would use day to day. What would truly rattle the ISP establishment, some observers say, would be a decision by a large existing provider to go gratis and rely on advertising income.
Several factors underlie the recent emergence of free Internet service.
That trend has made the Internet connection cheap enough for companies to employ as a kind of loss leader.