Saturday, February 17, 2007
When is Everything Free?

TechCrunch is reporting that AllFreeCalls.net, has been shut down at least temporarily. AllFreeCalls is a service that takes advantage of a bizarre loophole in the telephony laws that provides a kickback to local telecos for routing long distance calls through their circuits. Currently, Iowa is the only state that allows local carriers to take advantage of such a law. AllFreeCalls has been in operation since mid-January, and it looks like they met get buried in enough lawsuits to put them out of business, but their very existence raises what I think is an interesting question about how we look at internet services.

It's well known that the Sean Fanning-era Napster was not the first or the last way to get music for free online, but its popularity was so great that it triggered a behavioral shift in the music industry that was further legitimized by the launch of iTunes a few years later. YouTube did the same for video that Scour Exchange and its predecessors started. With services like Skype and AllFreeCalls out there, I wonder if we'll reach a point where we expect all calls to be free as well.

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I'm Blake. I like to learn stuff.

I like to learn about history, art, culture, sports, and politics. I like learning about what happens when you mix Diet Coke and Mentos. I like learning about Britney's latest flameup, Beckham's newest haircut, and how to make little origami gift boxes out a piece of 8.5x11.

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