Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by z3t4 2615 days ago
The market decide the prices. The value of something has very little to do with the price. You can not charge for something if a free alternative exist. The crux is that Google and Facebook are still profitable, even if it's free, so if they used their huge market share in an attempt to increase the price, competitors would pop up and bring the price down. Something being free also lowers the friction to use. A paywall is a barrier to entry.