Disagree. Bad product is for failure, good product is for success. The business model doesn't count as much as the product. Consider yourself as a possible sta

Disagree. Bad product is for failure, good product is for success. The business model doesn't count as much as the product. Consider yourself as a possible startup founder. Your first question is what to build, what the product will be? If you create something _unique_ you'll be the first on the market so you can start charging. And if you'll continuously improve your product and service to prove you are the expert of the domain you'll probably stay on the top of the market. So you can keep charging. Once these two criteria -- innovation & continuous improvement -- are not met you'll have to deal with business models and other speculations to sell yourself. Freemium is more a marketing model than a business model. You are giving away for free the demo part of your product instead of spending on _classical_ advertising. If your marketing is successful you'll sell more products. Those products who are not replaceable will not be free. You'll always pay for what you consider a necessity. [Update] As every business IT has it's own built around ecosystem: there are some successful products, the core of the business; there are newsmakers who do the promo, marketing etc. generating revenues by telling success stories; there are the followers who keep trying with similar but less competitive products generating more buzz than revenues. And there are endless discussions, rants by the watchers who are spending their time/money to express themselves and hear their own voices.