Your paraphrasing is wrong, because he did not say Non-free services both platform and non-platform do not work. Fred was specifically referring to potential pa

Your paraphrasing is wrong, because he did not say Non-free services both platform and non-platform do not work. Fred was specifically referring to potential paid competitors to twitter, facebook and similar services. to illustrate: Fred: "Free TV does not commoditize paid TV. They co-exist nicely. But we had free TV well before we had paid TV. Free is the foundation that creates a paid tier. " followed by, Fred: "I would encourage folks to compete with them to keep the web, the mobile web, and the Internet free and open. But I would not encourage those same folks to build paid services." So Fred was not speaking against all non free services. Developing for any platform that is not your own presents risks. Just because a developer is paying for app.net does not mean anything goes on app.net. Moreover I would not assume it's bad for innovation. Both Twitter and Facebook know they cannot alienate the majority of their users, they will innovate on their platform as needed. They also know they need to strike a balance when providing services for both their advertisers and users.