> I suppose exceptions could be made for services like Google, which people would pay $1000/year for if that's what all the providers charged Nobody would have

> I suppose exceptions could be made for services like Google, which people would pay $1000/year for if that's what all the providers charged Nobody would have paid $1000 a year for google. If they had started of trying to charge users then nobody would know about them. Most classes of online consumer apps are dominated by advertising supported models - search, email, social networking, social news, forums, productivity, etc. The transaction cost/hassle associated with paying is too large for most users to bother with.