When you’ve been given something absolutely free for nearly 15 years, it’s pretty easy to assume you’re going to get it free forever. Usually, that’s a pretty good assumption.

But it’s not a very good business model.

When the Times-News launched Magicvalley.com in November 1997, we didn’t really know what we had. And we really didn’t know what we were doing. The Internet was exploding and news — especially the aggregation and distribution of local news — was one of the things at the top of everyone’s online interest list.

So Magicvalley.com was born, and grew up quickly. Like most newspaper websites across the country, ours quickly became the most viewed website in our local area. We kept adding to it and over the course of the past decade the content of our website more closely mirrored that of the Times-News.