2001nov08. I just received an email message from my friend who’s vacationing in Europe. He had to go through a strangely-named online mail service called “Yahoo.” At the end of his message there was an ad for Yahoo, a promotional consideration for the “stamps” (?) provided by another company, another ad to “click here” to join some weird cult and win, according to the mail message , “COOL PRIZES,” and an animated gif ad for an mp3 downloading service hosted by a growling cup of coffee. On top of all this, I finally did some half-hearted research on the Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation and was disappointed to learn that funding has been almost non-existent. Selling dog food over the internet? That, that gets millions of dollars. But creating a foundation of digital cash that actually makes some sense, not like this “penny a page” nonsense? You get squat, so everyone gets four ads in their email.
