Most web apps are hosted on infrastructure that costs money to maintain, and can't be easily be duplicated. When you pay for that, you're not paying for a produ

Most web apps are hosted on infrastructure that costs money to maintain, and can't be easily be duplicated. When you pay for that, you're not paying for a product, you're paying for a service. It's analogous the difference between buying a lawn mower (where you're paying the company for a one-time act of producing a lawn mower), or paying someone to come by every week and cut your grass. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the software-as-a-service model, but there is a difference.