For instance, imagine a lounge where you can go and hang out. Pay for drinks, lots of couches, hang out with friends, and the catch is that once a week this place plays full records that won't be released for at least another month. You don't pay at the door, you don't pay per hour, you don't pay at all to just sit there. In return, at the beginning of the record they'll play selected ads, and on the days when they play advance screenings they'll plaster up some ads tastefully.<p>Could a cafe run in this way live (let alone thrive) in our current economy? Bigger picture -- could any business that gets revenue for its service (a cafe that plays advance music's service is the advance playing, not the cafe) solely from advertisements and sponsors?
I personally think it's interesting. A lot of B&M services are run the way they are because of tradition. Either you have the M&P private family owned businesses that have done it for years, or the big businesses who have similarly survived by playing by traditional rules.<p>Obviously those standards and traditions exist for a very good reason -- it works. I'm not saying it doesn't work, or that this model would work better, I'm just asking -- could it work at all?