Part 1 described the mechanics of an economy based on the unused processing power of desktop and laptop computers on the internet. Part 2 gave a detailed example of a digital media store like iTunes that could use this spare power to offer free music while still compensating the artists fairly. In this part, we'll do a comparison of some popular free Massively-Multiplayer Online (MMO) games between the revenue they earn and how and the revenue they could earn through the spare computer power of their users.

This is a possible use for the grid computing economy mentioned in part 1 , a media store funded by grid computing. The basic model works like this: a research group buys a large block of computer time for some major computational work they need done. That work is distributed in manageable blocks to users with spare processor cycles in exchange for credits.

The economic model for a lot of the Internet is to earn money through advertisement instead of directly from the consumer. This works great for online services like search engines, social networks, news and webgames where people come back to view the advertisements many times.