TIME magazine, the only publication I can read online at work, recently ran an interesting article called "How to Save Your Newspaper." The author, Walter Isaacson, says that despite the fact newspapers are downsizing hundreds of staffers and in some cases filing bankruptcy, they have more readers than ever thanks to their online audiences. The problem, he says, is monetizing this audience. He suggests a pay-per-read approach, where readers would click a link connected to something like PayPal that would charge them a small fee to read each story.

The same week TIME also ran a story that Facebook was facing backlash because it's terms of service language had been changed, apparently granting Facebook the right to hang onto any words, photos or music you uploaded to the site forever, regardless of whether you canceled your contract. It sounded like if a user happened to upload the Great American Novel to Facebook, Facebook owned it. (Facebook later recanted and said it had been misunderstood). It's no secret that Facebook and MySpace both use the profile information you enter to target advertisements to you, although I've experienced that much more with MySpace than Facebook.

Despite being the most popular invention since the wheel, the Internet's profitability has been hit-and-miss, with a tiny portion of companies (Amazon) being hugely successful as other entire industries (music, magazines) tank due to its power. Corporate interests are working every day, though, to figure out how to dig some dollars out of this phenomenon, sometimes using stealth marketing techniques, where agents of advertisers pose as ordinary citizens and penetrate Internet message boards pretending to be disinterested ordinary Joes ranting about a great product they just purchased.

Here's the problem with TIME's idea of charging for news stories: the same information is available just a mouse click away for free. "But we're TIME magazine," they might say. Who cares? That name means little to people under 50. "We provide objective, quality journalism." What is that, and who wants it? I have no real way to know what was said in Obama's private cabinet meeting, so I don't know if what you're telling me is any more true than what I might read on The Huffington Post. And the rise of news outlets like Drudge Report, Newsmax and FOX News demonstrate people really don't care for so-called objectivity. Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh are both popular because people like getting information from people who hold the same biases they do. So be glad I'm dropping by to be exposed to some banner ads for free.

In the case of the social networking sites, Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist who's blog is linked above, said a few years ago that capitalists had called the Internet a failure because it had flopped commercially, without realizing it had succeeded socially. Someone must've read those words and had the revelation that we, the people, the users, could become the advertisements! "Janet has become a fan of Smucker's Jam," says the message on Facebook when your trusted friend Janet joins the Smucker's group. "I love the new DigiTech echo pedal!" reads the new thread from a poster on the Telecaster.com guitar forum, which is really nothing but a interactive billboard for the Fender musical instrument company. And off we all go, dedicating some time to find out why Janet likes Smuckers so much, or reading 27 posts about the new DigiTech gizmo that may or not have been written by legitimate, enthusiastic musicians (see stealth marketing again).

So whereas the Internet has been, for the past 12 years, a wonderful frontier of largely commercial-free interaction and sharing, the day could be ahead where it will be nothing but one brightly-lit, interactive billboard, all of us spending our days marinating our minds in commercial messages carefully crafted to look like the sincere communications of our fellow citizens. If the Internet goes pay-per-click and stealth marketing, I may well turn this off and go to the mall. That'll show `em!

But before I go, have I told you how much I like the sandwiches at RaceTrac? Don't just take my word for it, go by and try one yourself!