We will keep providing free internet service until we suddenly pull the plug. We warn you in subtle and interesting ways. The bottom line. Sign up now for the same version of the service that you have enjoyed for free. There is only one small difference. You gotta pay this time. There is no such thing as a free lunch. So, all you 10 million subscribers , pay or die. That's it. Sign up now!

Key benefits of our service.

Over 10 million people have created Web sites using Homestead's award-winning software. Homestead Professional offers a premium version of our soon to be discontinued service designed specifically to meet the needs of small businesses, organizations, and professionals.

The above paragraph is taken, along with almost everything else on this site, from the Homestead website, which announced in an e-mail to the members of the service whose meta tags still describe it as "Homestead-Free Web Sites" that soon, really soon, at the end of June 2001, they will have to pay at least $9.99 (and the top end is at least $30.00) for the service they have enjoyed for free for quite a few years. People enticed by Homestead's claims, which for years were announced in web ads and on national television during Super Bowl (just like the famous Apple McIntosh ad that began the age of information on a personal level) have been essentially fed a lie, because they "published" websites, in good faith, using what has got to be the world's easiest page generator, the Homestead SiteBuilder, and now feel betrayed by a company who has up until now always been able to give the populace at large, the easy tools to show them that "building a website" is something everybody is entitled to, sort of like human rights, and the pursuit of happiness.

Homestead sincerely wants to try to ease this embarrassing news to all members. They made a mistake. They bought countless servers, and secured valuable internet webspace (price: 35 bucks for 50MB) and offered millions of people the chance to place "elements", a fancy name for those now abhorred and ignored click through ads on their new sites, hoping that the revenue generated by click through would pay the bills.

By making the mistake of calling themselves a totally free service, they lied to people. That's the truth in a nutshell. This was going to be an elaborate website parody, but even though most of it is cut and paste, it still takes time. So I have posted this essay, instead.

The dream of the internet, to me, is complete interconnectivity amongst the people of the world, sort of like a "virtual level playing field", where communication is king, and everybody might lie, but the truth will eventually make itself clear. I truly believe, from reading the message boards at Homestead these days, that there are a lot of people who feel betrayed.

Homestead isn't the "bad guy". They, like countless other internet companies, certainly didn't believe that the internet boom would go bust so quickly, and they have creditors just like we do. The Homestead company will now make money, at least hopefully to pay the bills. But the promise of the internet, offering unlimited funds for free, is fast becoming a memory. The internet is shrinking, and if you want to be a part of it, you have to pay for the privilege. This is a viable business model, and the Homestead company is merely finally admitting it.

What is upsetting about the whole thing, "this paying thing" as I've read in the posts at their own Discussion Boards, is that there are young people, and old people alike, who "bought the dream", posted sites on Homestead's server, and some of them are fantastic, and now they face the reality that their new "webpresences" will disappear if they can't foot the bill.

I can imagine a 14 year old webmaster with 25 or 30 MB of space. They work on this night after night. It is much more creative than just playing videogames. I truly believe that the capability to entice creativity is inherent (or was) in webhosting services like Homestead. The 14 year old (and there are many many young webmasters. I go surfing the Homestead directory often) is now confronted with what is possibly the single most important decision of his life. What happens when he loses his website?

Dad can't afford the price, and probably thinks it is a ridiculous enterprise anyway. With the dissolving of free webhosting services, and I believe Homestead is the first dominoe to fall, a generation of humans all over the world will grow more cynical. I see this on the message boards.

The solution. Homestead has been sending clues for six months, believe it or not. The introduction of Homestead Professional, with the disappearance of services from the free service, which is now called Homestead Personal, signalled the end of the free internet.

We have to pay for everything sooner or later. Now it's time to pay for our websites or they will die.

The guy who is writing the words you are reading on this hastily designed parody will pay for his site, because he can. And I really feel sorry for the people who can't pay, and who either lose their progeny websites or upload them to other free hosting services who go out of business causing them even more agony.

Life isn't easy, so virtual life should be no easier.

The tragedy is that Homestead has lied, and is still lying. The links will eventually be deleted, but as of tonight, and it's 12:21 am PDT on Monday, June 18, 2001, Homestead still offers "free web sites" to the uninitiated, and there are probably a lot of 14 year olds who are beginning to create and become inspired by the promise of the internet.

Homestead is the first to break that promise.