A radical idea: Charge people for your product

In A Radical Business Plan for Facebook:
Charge people [Slate], Farhad Manjoo proposes something crazy: Tech companies should start charging people to use their services. David is interviewed in the piece and explains why having a price is really cool for making profits.

I confess that I didnt come up with the idea for this radical business model on my own. I stole it from David Heinemeier Hansson, a developer at the innovative Web software company 37signals, a firm that has long proselytized the advantages of asking people to pay for stuff. The firm makes a tidy sum by charging small businessescompanies in what it calls the Fortune 5 Million$50 or $100 a month to use its suite of excellent project-management and collaboration apps.

Weve found out that having a price is really cool for making profits, Hansson pointed out last spring in an entertaining presentation called The Secret to Making Money Online. You have customers, they pay you money for the product or service, and you get profits! Its almost too simple to work. Of course, 37signals didnt come up with this idea on its own, either: Ive heard that over timehundreds of years actuallythis has been how most businesses have made their money. But somehow that notion got lost in the Web world.