[api]

A related argument had been made a lot lately about how "free" can lead to scummy business models like surveillance and manipulative black hat media tactics.

You can do free sustainably if your costs are low and if you have something a tier up you can sell. That's freemium and it can work for some things. But if your costs are high or if a paid tier does not materialize... Now you have a big problem. You own a liability, one purchased via massive investment and employing many people. You must find a way to make it pay, so you start looking at what you have a little differently. Your users... Now there's a product.

South Park parodied the grow-first-monetize-later gambit in the "underpants gnomes" episode:

1) collect underpants

2) ...?

3) profit!

Nobody knew the second step back then. Of course now companies like Facebook have shown us what step two is. It's:

2) sniff underpants

:)