[revorad]

maybe you aren't creating a compelling enough product to get a user demand that supports a 'freemium' biz model.

That sounds backwards to me. It seems that most web startups are not creating a compelling enough product to get people to pay for it. So instead, they are trying to get famous by giving it away for free and try to run the business on measly conversion rates until they can sell the money-sink to a big company.