edit: adjusted title slightly
What you are talking opens up a gigantic can of worms that there is no easy solution to, if there is any solution at all.
It might if I was suggesting any kind of legislative solution here. I’m not. I’m merely saying that IA should be more selective about how it can be accessed.
For example, if a journalist is doing a piece about how websites secretly change content, I think it’s entirely reasonable for them to pay for accessing IA for the purposes of that article, because it’s directly related to a commercial endeavor. However, I don’t expect random internet users to pay for access to that same information, because it’s not related to a commercial endeavor.
In general, you should pay for content that you’re going to use commercially.
If Google is basically outsourcing their cache to IA, they should be paying IA for the additional traffic and server load.
And that’s precisely what I’m saying. I’m also taking it a step further and suggesting that IA should be on top of it so companies like Google (who are profiting from their service) pay, while regular internet users don’t.
In general, you should pay for content that you’re going to use commercially
Sure, but merely linking to a page isn’t reusing the content. If said content was being embedded, rehashed or otherwise shown then a compensation would be fair. But merely linking to a page should absolutely be free. That’s a massively important cornerstone of the internet that shouldn’t be compromised on.
Linking directs traffic which can be monetized by the website itself, it shouldn’t require additional fees on top.
There’s a difference between primary content like a website, and secondary content like a cache of a page. I think services doing the latter should be a bit more aggressive about charging fees for commercial entities linking to them, since they’re providing a service separate from the primary source.
