I sure hope Ether works outside the US. At the risk of going off on another CoComment-style declaration of awesomeness, I must admit that this service could remove a huge, huge, HUGE pain-point for me. From the site:
We all have something valuable to say. Whether you're an accountant, a computer expert, a blogger, or a good gossiper, you can earn money selling what you say to others over the phone or through email...How much is your time worth? $75 an hour? $15 for 15 minutes? $30 per call? Whatever you like. People will only be able to call you when they've prepaid your rate.
I spend a lot of my time consulting for web companies, and you wouldn't believe how much effort is wasted on negotiating fees and then managing the billing process. It's a huge waste of the client's time and mine - why can't I just set a price and automatically bill them? And what about the scores of startups that email me each week asking for a quick critique of their business plan? This way I could allocate them 15 minutes on the phone and give them all the attention they deserve. In short: Ether will make my life a hundred - nay, a thousand! - times easier.
Ether is still in private beta - that's a shame (lemme in, lemme in, lemme in!). And I can't figure out whether it will work outside the US. What's more, Ether's commission is a hefty 15% (10% for beta testers) - I'd pay that right now, but at some point I'd appreciate some price competition in this market. Personally, I expected Skype to pounce on this opportunity after the Paypal acquisition - either way, I'm happy that someone has taken the intiative to provide a much-needed service.
On a side-note, I'd say Ether is indicative of a wider trend: now that information is increasingly free, media creators will try to pay for their time by selling goods, services and events on top of that information. Think GapingVoid T-shirts. Think the PostSecret book. Think consulting over Ether. Selling information is hard, but the sale of physical goods and services is still a good way to pay the rent. To put it another way: in the attention economy, media is free. But time, knowledge and talent are more expensive than ever.