It's the economy, stupid.

I shook my head at this one. Then I laughed. Then I shook my head some more.

The headline on MSN.com read: "Is it Over for YouTube?"

Being a casual visitor to YouTube, I was curious and read the article. It boiled down to this one quote:

"Josh Martin, an IDC research analyst, issued a report Thursday asserting that YouTube will struggle to squeeze profits from its video-sharing business, primarily because its audience has grown accustomed to paying nothing for the service. "

Gee, you think?

It used to be that the way to make money was to offer someone a valuable service or item for which they were willing to trade currency. Nope, not anymore. World, meet the Internet - aka the "Cyber Wal-Mart" where the lowest price (see "zero") is the law. If it ain't free, it'd better be porn.

While no one in their right mind would argue that the internet is not a fantastic invention with extremely valuable applications, it has also opened the floodgates for economic anarchy. And don't give me this "old business models just need to be replaced by new ones." Bullshit, Cory, STFU. The internet, like television, is seen as a means of making money largely because of the commercial applications (electronic retailing) and, you guessed it, advertising. Money makes the world go round. Fortunately for the internet, there are still ad agencies out there that think people read the ads that appear on popular sites - so if your site is popular, hey, cha-ching!

...But I don't read those ads...do you? Does anyone?

And watch out: as soon as all those ad execs realize that no one is watching, there'll be a lot more "Is it over for (blank)" articles.