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Facebook is free, Twitter is free, Wordpress is free. Doesn’t this bother anyone else? Instead of charging their customers a nominal dollar or two or five to use these services on a monthly basis, VC’s flood them with investment money that, psychologically, lets these guys “worry about the business plan later.” Doesn’t THIS bother anyone else?

I thought this post was appropriate in the wake of Twitter’s recent surge in popularity – which has been very cool to watch by the way.  The problem is that Twitter’s still burning through their venture money, and not taking in very much at all.  Investors are counting on the brilliant minds at Twitter to ‘come up with something brilliant‘ that makes money – like Google did before them.  But the stark reality is that most hackers aren’t good at business models.  There’s no guarantee that Twitter will ever make money, and if it doesn’t then it’s doomed to fail (on its own).

Facebook is another example.  Sure, they show ads and probably are doing ok with that, but with straight up revenue from their users, they could be in the black by a mile.  I would be very interested to see the numbers around how much each of Facebook’s users actually costs Facebook.  Charging a nominal fee would take care of so many issues around business model questions.

But I know what you’re thinking – “Adrian wake up” – “It’s not the way the world works”.  We live in a culture where the Internet has become a “platform of free applications” – whereas the desktop, while offering some free tools, was always the platform of the paid for commercial application.  The problem that I have with the whole thing is that in a market economy, products that deliver value cost money – it’s a totally simplistic, yet totally logical fact.

Perhaps in the web’s infancy, certain web platform applications didn’t provide enough value to warrant a charge, and so this culture of free applications was born and has been only cultivated to this point.  My argument is that at some point, the wave will crest (it has already in my humble opinion), and the value that web applications offer will warrant a fee because people (and, more importantly, BUSINESSES) won’t be able to live without them.

So what’s in store for the future?  Web apps will continue to not charge and the current economic conditions will force some startups to fail (we’re already seeing this) – others will struggle with their business model, but gain enough users to get venture backing and try to ‘come up with a business plan later’ and others will decide to charge for their products and probably hold a better chance at surviving.  I for one urge web consumers to change their stance on paying for services that they gain value from – let’s change the culture so the truly great services on the web can stand a chance at surviving like….a real business!

A recent idea of Twitter’s to charge businesses to use the service is perhaps a step in the right direction – but change has to come from the top, meaning the leaders of the web – Facebook, Twitter, MySpace…and even news sites like Digg, Reddit and the New York Times.  Why are news companies failing?  Because reporting costs money to produce and therefore, should cost money to consume!!!!!!!

Rant over.