Man, I hope so. The impetus for my earlier tweet about scarcity was exactly this problem. How do we make money with a web application if people get so uptight about being charged for stuff? - Mark Trapp

I've mentioned this before as well. The Web 2.0 movement has taught users to expect something for nothing. Blog for free, use social networks for free, get useful plug-ins for free, Firefox Add-Ons for free, multiple apps for free. Heck, even FF being free is part of the problem in some way. We should expect to pay for value and businesses shouldn't be afraid of doing so. - AJ Kohn

Yeah, it is an entrenched mindset. My participation in many apps/sites would drop dramatically, but there are some I'd pay for. - Hutch Carpenter

So Chris, for all the companies that make the software, where do they get the money to whether the economic situation? Now's not the time to be giving away services for free, either. - Mark Trapp

I wonder about services like Craigs List. Such a different mindset there. They don't charge to advertise there, for the most part. Free works there, as the site members create the activity and the required hardware/software is at a relatively low cost. - Hutch Carpenter

Craigslist makes a ton of money in the real estate and job sections :) - Mona Nomura

Chris - good way of thinking about it. You really need an altruistic streak for that model. Wikipedia has this as well. - Hutch Carpenter

You need to build in perceived value. You can hedge your bets and continue to offer a free version but have a tiered paid version as well. Not just free and paid because free looks too good, but Free, Paid, Premium. Suddenly, Paid looks like a decent value. - AJ Kohn