I think you're wrong, and you're underestimating the transformational impact of Ad-Words.
Free internet existed before paid internet, true, but mostly because people did things for other motives (like fun). Altavista was a tech demo for DEC. Good information was found on personal web pages, most often on .edu sites.
Banner ads existed, but they were confined to the sketchy corners of the Internet. Thing today's spam selling viagra. Anyone credible didn't want to be associated with them.
What Google figured out was:
1) Design. Discrete ad-words didn't make them look sketchy. This discovery came up by accident, but that's a longer story.
2) Targeting. Search terms let them know what to ads to show.
I can't overstate the impact of #2. Profits went up many-fold over prior ad models. This was Google's great -- and ultra-secret -- discovery. For many years, they were making $$$, while cultivating a public image of (probably) bleeding $$$ or (at best) making $. People were doing math on how much revenue Google was getting based on traditional web advertising models, while Google knew precisely what you were shopping for.
By the time people found out how much money Google's ad model was making, they had market lock-in.
Free internet existed before paid internet, true, but mostly because people did things for other motives (like fun). Altavista was a tech demo for DEC. Good information was found on personal web pages, most often on .edu sites.
Banner ads existed, but they were confined to the sketchy corners of the Internet. Thing today's spam selling viagra. Anyone credible didn't want to be associated with them.
What Google figured out was:
1) Design. Discrete ad-words didn't make them look sketchy. This discovery came up by accident, but that's a longer story.
2) Targeting. Search terms let them know what to ads to show.
I can't overstate the impact of #2. Profits went up many-fold over prior ad models. This was Google's great -- and ultra-secret -- discovery. For many years, they were making $$$, while cultivating a public image of (probably) bleeding $$$ or (at best) making $. People were doing math on how much revenue Google was getting based on traditional web advertising models, while Google knew precisely what you were shopping for.
By the time people found out how much money Google's ad model was making, they had market lock-in.