economics are not, after all, suspended in cyberspace like the laws of gravity in outer space. Content needs to be paid for on the Web just as in any other medium. And it probably has to be paid for the same way most other things are paid for: by the people who use it. We tried charging the customers at Slate. It didn't work. Future experiments may be more successful, and we at Slate encourage others to jump in. We'll watch. But meanwhile, let's look again at this notion that in every medium except the Internet people pay for the content they consume. It's not really true.