hype 2.0, yahoo, and business models

So the web 1.0 business model was mostly, IPO and (the owners/creators) get rich.
Note that this doesn't mean the CLIENTS of the fabulous web thing get rich, or the new stockholders, or that the new thing even stays alive or sustains its value.

The web 2.0 business model appears to be mostly GBO = Get Bought Out.
Note that this (see above).

In particular I think you have to be very wary of how all these wonderful free data services are going to be sustained.  There are only three web ways that I can think of to make money:

1. Give away the service in order to attract people to your site to buy stuff (Amazon)
2. Get people to see your ads (Google)
3. Charge people for use

If the service you're using isn't making money in any of those ways, or in some way I have missed, I think you need to ask yourself if it's going to be sustainable.  SOMEone has to pay for electricity, cooling, server space, network bandwidth, storage...

So far Yahoo has bought (amongst others):

• Flickr
• delicious

and CNet has bought Consumating.

Now I can see how this is all super within Yahoo (and CNet).
But if I'm standing outside consuming services freely, without ever seeing the Yahoo interface and Yahoo ads, the business model for Yahoo is... what, exactly?

Is this a forbidden topic?  We're all supposed to build wonderful systems using these services floating out there in the Web 2.0 world, and this is all going to be paid for... how?

Yahoocious announcement via schwagbag.

UPDATE 2005-Dec-11: Bubble bubble, sign of trouble?
A nice post on Signs of a Bubble from Tristan Louis.  Here is a summary of the 5 points:

1. "The rules are different now"

2. Money, money, money

Valuations, revenue models and metrics fall in this category.

...

Among some of those fundamentals are things like what the revenue model of a company is. Words like "Let's build it and we'll figure out how to generate revenue from it down the line" are dangerous. An unclear business model rarely gets clearer as time goes on and, if the company does not offer a solution that can be easily monetized, its chances for success are slim. Running a company is generally a difficult endeavor and running a start-up is even more difficult as smaller companies can easily be trampled by giants. Having no revenue goal in mind at the onset is generally a pretty bad proposition. If you look at companies that have weathered a bubble and burst cycle, it is generally because they were focused on meeting some revenue targets. Companies that did not generally disappear when the bubble bursts.

3. Features and me-too solutions

4. Poster child can do no wrong

5. Little attention to infrastructure problems

During a bubble, attention to boring details like capacity planning, infrastructure management, security, etc... sometimes take a back seat to new feature introduction. ...

[My comment: also, this is common before and after a bubble - people are not good at thinking about infrastructure/sustainability in general.]

When features take precedence over infrastructure, you're dealing with a clear sign of failure down the road. This may not kill a company outright but, when the bubble burst, the ones who have not paid enough attention to such things are generally among the first to go as they find themselves in the difficult position of needing capital outlay when money becomes more scarce.

via BusinessWeek Blogspotting: Bubble, Bubble