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Some good guys get rich

2 comments on Some good guys get rich

Some good guys get rich
: A guy you probably never heard of named Tom Evslin is responsible for much of the growth of the Internet. For it was Tom who decided when he headed AT&T WorldNet to switch from per-minute billing for Internet access to flat, all-you-can eat access for $19.95 per month. AOL and everybody else soon had to follow and the market exploded. And the old ways of the old phone companies — ruled by time — gave way to the new ways of the new communications companies — ruled by access and bandwidth instead. The clock succumbed to the click.

Tom left AT&T (wisely) and started a company to broker voice services over the Internet (now acronymed VOIP). And today, VC Fred Wilson tells us that Tom’s company was sold to create the third-largest long-distance phone company. Couldn’t happen to a smarter guy.

2 responses to “Some good guys get rich”

  1. homer jay Avatar
    homer jay

    Now that’s rare, a guy who’s done good things getting rich. Linus is another guy that comes to mind. He deserves it as well.
    http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/

  2. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    I dissent: in moving to flat-fee pricing, the Internet moved more towards the user, it’s true. But as a small time content provider (this is my public disclosure) who cannot attract advertising, but provides value, I feel that the most appropriate basis for compensation is by page views, something which flat-fee will not accommodate. (A site like mine, which provides immediate value to a visitor, but little long term value — someone may want to know a valuable Johnson quip on poverty once, and may never have need for a Johnson quip again — cannot rely on the generosity of its visitors because the value is brief and there is little repeat visitation. For example, I received over 25,000 visits in October, and only one visitor made a donation. At even one penny a visit, or page, I would have been compensated more equitably.)
    When the market moved to flat fee, it lost the ability to charge users according to the value which they were receiving, making it impossible to compensate content providers accordingly. So, yeah, great for users, but the value and diversity of content on the Internet is going to be completely dependent on those who are willing to donate their time to users.
    And, as Johnson said, “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” We can disagree about the validity of Johnson’s comment, but I think we would all like as little blockhead-driven content as possible.