A simple economics study will show you that with a growing population and increased automation of labor that any model based on profit is doomed to fail if we work toward giving everyone equal access to the resources our culture can provide.

I’m not saying that everything will be free of course, just that the present understanding of money and profit has a limited lifespan considering the technology that will be available within the next hundred years.

Fusion power plants = virtually free power – First starts in 2018, full power in 2026. Others coming on line in virtually every major country within the next 10-15 years.

And that is just the start. Most of the costs associated with print, audio, and video media are eliminated when most of the people are consuming their content on the internet. All those costs associated with the upkeep and employment of hundreds of thousands of building and employees is eliminated. Tons of cost and jobs gone again.

As new ways of doing things comes along, most of those new ways are preoccupied with doing more with less, and in a world of an ever increasing population, profit or capitalism will no longer work like it does today.

We will probably adopt a system where you work at whatever job your assigned or are good at and in return you can within reason purchase whatever you need and want if the world grid can support it.

This is not going to happen overnight and plenty of people will go kicking and screaming into this system. However no one can offer a better solution to this problem that governments and think thanks around the world have been considering since the 1960′s.

I myself have been considering it for two years now and I can’t think of anything different that is truly fair to all of our peoples. And anything less that that is becoming increasingly unacceptable to a growing number of people.

I really am concerned about the lengths some very powerful people will go to prevent this from happening but in the end they will chance their minds or we as species will cease to exist as we do today in favor of a small group of people who have everything while the rest of us slave to give them that incredible lifestyle.

And even that will not last for long.

My jaw dropped on this sentence. YOU might have no problem, but, to me, that ebook is four pairs of shoes on my kids’ feet. That webinar is more than a month’s groceries. There has better be some seriously compelling sales copy, creator credibility, and implied value to convince me to “shell out” that kind of money. Yes, I will pay for content but I also have to consider the cost of content over the cost of living. There are LOTS of things I wish I could buy that I don’t because I’d rather give my kids beef instead of noodles for dinner.

If everything online required cash a lot of current internet users would be out of the game. Yes, there will be those who can afford to stay in the game, who mightn’t even blink at paying for this or splurging on that, but that is a small percentage of the global community. The rest will go find something else to do or somewhere else to read. In the brick and mortar world the public library continues to let readers have something to read when they don’t want to buy a book.

Yes, more paid-for-content sites will spring up online, just as more paid options for all sorts of formerly free, or advertising supported, industries have been created. But, I can’t think of any that doesn’t still have its free alternatives. Some people pay for cable television, but millions still only watch free-to-air channels.

The question comes down to what you want your community to be. Obviously, a free community is open to everyone, it’s harder to keep out the riff-raff, it’s not exclusive or elite. But it is an open forum for thought and free exchange of ideas, it welcomes the “abundance mentality” (enough for everyone) rather than the “scarcity mentality” (a slice of the pie).

Part of the reason there are paid-for-content sites, free blog content, advertising-based models, sponsor supported, and charity based businesses is because no one way is right for everyone. It comes down to deciding what is the best representation for your business.

In FWJ’s case I think your business is suited to pay-for-content. Those job listings are VERY valuable and should not be free. Creating a walled-off community will decrease the competitiveness of your readers and separate those willing to invest in an easy way to source their leads and those who aren’t. Readers know that those job leads are available in other ways, those who aren’t willing to pay will just hit the pavement.

But I also think you need an element of free content to promote the community atmosphere. After all, I don’t come here for job leads, I come for the conversation.

A few months ago, I had lunch with a client who runs a business consulting firm specializing in data mining and analytics. He made a very compelling case for newspapers, in particular, to adopt new strategies in terms of online advertising.

I won’t bore everyone with the gory details, but learning more about the ways user data can be collected and utilized to improve ad performance (and, thus, its value to advertisers) was an eye-opener.

Just like we all learned to love cable, many online players will grudgingly come to appreciate the unique opportunities the Internet offers to create profitable ad-supported sites.