Reviews by John: Frequently Asked Question

How can you provide this service for free; what do you get out of it?

As of now (May, 1999), this is the only question that more than one person has asked me--and since the answer isn't obvious, "What do you get out of it?" is a very sensible question. The answer is nothing--yet. Right now, since my service is still new, I have comparatively few subscribers on my e-mail list, and my webpage is still relatively quiet--but how many Internet services open with 1,000,000 subscribers and 100,000 web hits per day? As time passes, I hope the service will grow large enough and earn a good enough reputation that I may be able to sell ad space on the review pages/e-mails. (Having a distain for "spam," I approach the latter with some hesitation, anyway.) Right now, I don't believe I could do that.

The flip side of the coin is that it doesn't cost me anything, either. I was already paying to see one movie per week, give or take. I already had personal Internet access and a computer. Yahoo e-mail accounts and Geocities web server space are both "free," (really, their profits are ad-based, like TV or radio) so the "infrastructure" adds no new costs. (If I began selling ads, I'd have to move to new quarters--but at that stage, it would be worth the costs.) In essence, financially, the costs are non-existent. All it takes is time to write down what I was usually already thinking about the movies.

A second future benefit I should mention is that while I'm not making a profit, I am writing and publishing a weekly column online--this is experience that could be useful when job-hunting.

For that matter, a third benefit is that I have a forum to express my opinions, and someday, in a kingdom far, far away, that could influence how movies are made for the better.

Right now, however, I view my service in a manner similar to many online enterprises: it hasn't broken even yet, but I have high hopes for the future.

FAQ written 5/13/99.

Copyright © 1999 by John Haywood.