"it's not a physical good that we ship that we're "giving away", it's a utility with a small marginal cost per user" you just contradicted yourself. You're say

"it's not a physical good that we ship that we're "giving away", it's a utility with a small marginal cost per user" you just contradicted yourself. You're saying you don't give anything away and yet there is an associated cost to providing the service. The holistic approach is nice, but "making people happy" doesn't pay the bills, and if you're ever looking for investors (not saying that you should) then this argument will get you laughed out of the board room. I'm not criticizing your service - I think its great, really useful and polished. What bothers me is consumer mentality. The idea that "I'm willing to take advantage of a useful service but not willing to pay for it". In a sense though all the free web services out there are feeding the perception that web sites are free by giving away too much. Have you ever heard of a free plumbing, or child care or any other service? Bandwidth, storage and most importantly developer hours cost money - stop devaluing your own services!! Personally i think that a focus on small business or enterprise software gives a much better chance of long term success (which i measure as dollars in the bank, not smiles on faces). Love your product as well as the great tech that you have created - if I was a user I would definitely be a paying one ;)