[byoung2]

I think as long as you make it clear from the start that your site isn't going to be free forever, you won't get any significant customer backlash

Perhaps it would be helpful to put a price on it from the beginning, and offer invitation-only free accounts?

[cperciva]

That's certainly an option in some cases. I couldn't do that for tarsnap, because at the point I started bringing people to test tarsnap, I didn't have the accounting code written yet.