Also missed by many startups is that real customers WANT to pay for a service. Paying means the provider owes you something - quality, support, not shutting down tomorrow, etc. Paying also means you are entering into a mutual exchange of value, and supporting the future of a product that brings you value. Good businesses understand commerce is an ecosystem, not winner take all.

This is often difficult for young entrepreneurs to understand, because they are bootstrapping, have no budget, and want everything for free. Actually, offering service for free often makes customers uncomfortable - they think either you are incompetent or won't last.

Often when a free service shuts down and people complain, there is a contingent of HN that responds "it's free so stfu." While somewhat valid, the converse is that when it's not free, you do have a right to demand something.

Personally, I favor products that charge reasonable rates and have a business model. I would not spend a minute integrating with a service that did not seem to have at least a roadmap to billing me because I would rightly believe the service is likely to shut down, leaving me with the task of replacing it.