My contention is that “Free” as described and used in many contemporary web-based businesses is a non-business model that is not only broken, but actively harmful to entrepreneurship. Free rarely works, and all the times that it doesn’t, it undermines entrepreneurial creativity, destroys market value, delivers an inferior user experience and pumps hot air into financial bubbles.
The price of “Free” | Serious Simplicity
Lately I’ve noticed that all of my most-used applications and services are things that I’ve paid for.