[breck]

I think this is a reasonable prediction. To paraphrase something I saw on here recently: "in the long run, business model trumps culture". I think there are hundreds of directions the business could go (Freebase being one, the next Bloomberg another, a simple shutdown being the most likely route in VC startups). But I agree with your skepticism that in the long-run the "we're here to help humanity" ethos will take a back seat to the profit motive.

But all that being said, there's always at least a chance that the organization somehow bucks the trend. Or, even if the organization eventually becomes dominated by the profit motive in the long run, that's not to say that it won't build really beneficial things before that happens. Freebase eventually sold and stopped maintaining it, but it built a free database that anyone in the world could use (and still could use). It pioneered a concept. I don't know what Rap Genius is up to these days, but I thought their annotations ux was really innovative and I'm sure pioneered a whole lot of other sites. So even if an organization's mission eventually takes a back seat to profit, it can create ton of value along the way.

Personally I find this startup very interesting and am excited to see where they go.