Excellent analysis and line of thinking. The tech community really needs to give up the idea that hard work should be given away for free. Trail periods are fine, but legitimate businesses need real cash flow, and very, very few can survive off advertising alone.
The tech community really needs to give up the idea that hard work should be given away for free.
Does "[t]he tech community" even have that belief to begin with? The techies I know, both OSS contributor and not, believe that there is value in giving away some things (e.g., open sourcing projects) but proper and expected to charge for other things.
While people may not agree on what exactly should be free I've met no one who flatly claims hard work should be given away for free.
The web appears to, but it actually follows the OTA television model (with all the implications). The Apple-led smartphone world is in an odd large-scale-B2C place right now that is looking increasingly unsustainable.
