We posted on Friday about how YouTube is beginning to charge for content, starting with a selection of Sundance movies for a $3.99 rental.  The NY Times has been examining strategies that would allow them to charge for their content, either by adopting a Wall Street Journal model of having some parts of their site be free, while others are pay-for-access, or having users be able to view one or two articles before hitting a “pay wall” after which all content would need to be paid for.  Which all begs the question – how is the internet going to change as it becomes the primary source of content for most users?  After years of the internet being a supplement for magazines and newspapers, traditional media is nose diving at a peak rate – major magazine publisher Conde Nast is closing magazines and laying people off by the thousands, the book world is struggling with the gap between digital and print by introducing products like the Kindle, and newspapers are losing readership at rapid rates.  And yet, internet advertising still doesn’t pay enough to give on-line publishers viable revenue, leaving us in a strange gap where we get our content on-line, but the purveyors of that content haven’t yet figured out how to profit from it.  How do you think sites like the New York Times, YouTube, Hulu, Twitter, or blogs are going to start making money in large enough amounts to support them as companies? Given that one of the large advantages of the internet is the anyone can put thoughts out there for anyone to read format, do you think some content should remain free of charge?  How can we reconcile how the internet is different from traditional media while still having it retain the viable money making abilities of the traditional form?  Share your thoughts with us!