Kevin Werbach writes:
Why is it so shocking for eBay CEO Meg Whitman to say that users will expect voice phone calls to be free in five years? Does anyone today expect to pay for email messages or instant messages? One can quibble over the timing, but not the ultimate outcome.
So the question for the telecom sector becomes, how to make money when you can’t charge for a wired phone call?…Who better to understand how to generate profits in this new world than Skype? They understand how to leverage a huge community and develop ancillary services that commmunity will pay for. The company has never charged a penny for in-network phone calls, and revenue is going through the roof.
“Our belief is that the winner in this space will be those that have the largest ecosystem,” said Whitman.
