Free is a fad. (We should differentiate free in this sense from actual "Free Software" which is a completely different ballgame than what we're discussing here

Free is a fad. (We should differentiate free in this sense from actual "Free Software" which is a completely different ballgame than what we're discussing here.) Having your customers pay you directly for a service is the natural state of most business arrangements for very good reasons - the big one being the lack of any conflicts of interest which erode product quality. The software industry is still a baby and the online services industry is a newborn. As the industry matures quality will matter more and this will lead to customers paying directly for software entirely to get access to a higher quality product. It has already begun with Apple, both hardware and software. Free is the dominate fad right now but it won't last forever.