I attempted it pretty well in the last post, maybe you missed it. Free software costs money to host and maintain. If you want to break even, you need some long

I attempted it pretty well in the last post, maybe you missed it. Free software costs money to host and maintain. If you want to break even, you need some long-tail income source to cover hosting, etc. That was a full sentence, happy? People who release free software are often not hustlers. Hell, if they had business sense, maybe they'd make it a paid product. If you don't feel comfortable asking for money in exchange for your software, ads and bundled installs offer a much lower friction way to cover your costs. Charging 99 cents for a desktop app is ridiculous right now, although maybe the windows and mac app stores will change that. Either way, collecting a few dollars per user directly is a huge pain in the ass. If these companies did what they're supposed to do, it'd be more about discovery, and less about shoving downloads down your throat. I had this argument about IVRs yesterday; how do you make a good product in a field people hate? If everyone shouts down the notion of an IVR, who's going to bother making a good one? If everyone is automatically against bundled downloads, the best, least sleazy company in the world wouldn't stand a chance.