[sgt101]

I feel a terrible unease about these companies. It's not the bloated valuations, but rather the motivation for running companies in this way. The plc has many critics, as a model of risk sharing and financial transparency it's got huge holes right through it as Enron (and other car crashes) showed. But who has a clue about what's happening in these companies, and who, and what (banks, pension companies, taxpayers, plc's) are being taken for a ride?

Caution...

[debacle]

I get you. Just yesterday I was thinking about how valuable everything these companies give us for free is, and how Google specifically has completely distorted what people's perceptions are on the value of software, especially email. Google can have 50 loss leaders that completely obliterate the ability to profit in certain segments for other companies, and they're so massive they don't even feel it.

[cullenking]

This is actually a very common problem we see with our service. Tons of 1 star reviews in Play/iTunes because we dare to withhold (valuable) features in order to make enough profit to run the business. Once a week we get very very negative (read: swearing) emails to customer support about needing a paid account to do certain things. Kinda a shame, considering the sheer value we offer 98% of our free users because 2% actually pay.

Preaching to the choir I am sure :)

[debacle]

Actually right now I'm geocoding about 100k addresses for completely free via Google's APIs. Something that would have cost a few hundred dollars a few years back, at the very least.