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by yjftsjthsd-h 988 days ago
> You cannot have both a gigantic user base and a paid product.

That really depends on how we define "gigantic user base", but I think Adobe, Valve, and Autodesk all disprove it.

> If you charge for your product you will always have people who do not value your product at the price you need to charge.

It doesn't matter how many non-customers you get, only how many customers you get.

In general, I think you do have something of a point in that it is easier to get more users with a nominal price of $0, and it might be a way to get enough users that the small $/user from ads works out. That doesn't mean that ads are always going to work or that other models can't work, though.