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News Directors Foundation said they'd be willing to pay even a nominal fee for a news-on-demand electronic service; most would prefer that such services be supported by advertising. GVU also reported that 67.6 percent of respondents said they were not willing to pay fees for accessing Web sites, although it qualified that by pointing out that it was unclear whether this was because of a perceived lack of value of the information supplied (which might change over time) or because people were already paying for access to the Net through online service fees and telephone bills.

Either way, these attitudes suggest that an interesting battle lies ahead between two net.obsessions: freedom of information and privacy. Commercial interests don't want to give their information away; if advertising is going to pay all those costs, then Net users must be prepared to give up their demographic secrets. If users want privacy and anonymity, they may have to pay extra for it. On the Net, there is no reason why both approaches shouldn't exist simultaneously.