[jetti]

Just like in the article, I beg to disagree. This reminded me of an article I saw a while back (which I can't find at the moment) of a guy who brought donuts into work and then quit his job to start his bakery. He would bring in donuts and then realize that he wasn't getting enough money to cover the donuts when charging per donut so what he did was put out a tip/donation basket/jar and would have a sign stating donations accepted. Turned out he would make more per location doing that than if he charged per donut. He attributed this to the fact that in a group setting people would feel guilty not contributing as well as people's conscious coming into play. (Please forgive the butchering of my recount of the tale and if anybody has a link it would be appreciated if they could post)

Your explanation is incredibly cynical and suggests that people are all completely self-centered and lack empathy. There are still people who will pay for things that bring them value and recognize hard work that goes into a product. It is the same reason why people donate to open source projects. They don't need to. They could easily use the project and be on their way.