What does this mean?  Just that quality acceptance is more closely related to the cost of production than the outcome of production.  In my opinion, and within 'limits,' of course.

So, where's the 'free lunch?'

The trite answer of course is, "right where you left it," but that doesn't address the real issue here. 

There has been very little education done to help Internet consumers understand the issues here – and the unending emphasis on 'free' stuff (music, movies, software etc) hasn't helped.

It seems that whenever a content-rich site tries to improve its advertising offering, possibly with targeted adverts, there is a cry from the consumers – how dare they attempt to understand me enough to direct 'useful' adverts to me.  Fer goodness sake, I might be tempted to buy something!

Similarly I've heard anecdotal reports that when a well-known podcaster tried to insert a 15-second 'message' at the front of his audio stream, his listeners complained very loudly… never mind that he had to find enough funding to pay for 3 or 4 full-time staff to produce the podcast.

Overall, this is simply an education problem.  The difficulty is "who goes first?" No-one wants to be the first to start charging for content that consumers expect to be free.  And governments will accuse them of collusion if they all do it together.

Fun times indeed, but as they say, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.