There's a trend of manufacturing scarcity for bits. Users don't like it but companies will use it as a way to goose earnings.
Once a company finds a way to do it then all other companies will start to do it.
We've started to see something similar with all the paywalls that have gone up in the last decade.
A good example are wireless companies. Cell phone companies could have gone the unlimited subscription model route many years ago but yet they continue to limit the use. It's not a straight per minute model but you can divide the monthly charges by the minutes and it works out the same way.
The way to fight it is to go open source and the expansion of community projects like Wikipedia and such. But getting people to do work for the public good without compensation in the long term is next to impossible.
Charging by the period of time is coming. I'm 100% sure.
We've started to see something similar with all the paywalls that have gone up in the last decade.
A good example are wireless companies. Cell phone companies could have gone the unlimited subscription model route many years ago but yet they continue to limit the use. It's not a straight per minute model but you can divide the monthly charges by the minutes and it works out the same way.
The way to fight it is to go open source and the expansion of community projects like Wikipedia and such. But getting people to do work for the public good without compensation in the long term is next to impossible.
Charging by the period of time is coming. I'm 100% sure.