Commentators, Hosts and Pundits Who Forget How They're Fed

During a recent Buzz Out Loud (the CNET podcast hosted by Molly Wood, Tom Merritt & Veronica Belmont), two of the hosts rattled on for several minutes about a correspondent's concern that Google Videos would soon be arriving (or are arriving) with optional advertising tacked onto the end of the file. They also theorized about Google adding advertising to free videos posted on the site. After expressing confusion over whether or not the addition of ads was good or bad, and after leaving listeners with a distinctly negative spin on the issue, Molly Wood announced a short break in the show during which, you guessed it, they ran an ad for Earthlink.net's internet services.

Ad revenue finances the efforts of tens of millions of people and businesses, including CNET and Google.

Throughout the Internet world, vast legions of independent consumers can and regularly do kill products by refusing to buy them, use them or otherwise pay attention to them.

Google's increasingly confusing search results, its regularly destructive re-indexing projects, and its numbingly robotic responses to ranking, listing and re-indexing complaints rate much more intense scrutiny and concern from intelligent commentators (in which group I certainly include Molly, Tom & Veronica).

If advertising offends Google video customers, they'll vote with their wallets, clicks and bandwidth. Until such a thing happens, Google's efforts at pushing ads through any of its hosted free or commercial content is a non-issue.