BizOrigin

TechCrunch has an article about Mundu’s IM application for iPhone titled “Mundu Has A Great iPhone Chat Application. Why Will They Charge For It?”

It really burns me up when I see articles like these. What’s wrong with charging for an application that has already been rated as Great? Why should everything be “free” or “ad supported”

People need to get off from this this binge of “free software.”

_Just put an ad_ has become such an overused mantra; I wouldn’t care much except that the advice is not effective and may even be counter productive. Don’t make all the start ups go down this slippery slope of free software.

The battle of free vs. paid, for content, was fought between NYTimes and WSJ; and who won? The correct overall answer is “both”; but the narrow business answer is that NYTimes admitted that the everything free mantra has limitations by starting the Times Select paid service.

I have no relationship with, or particular affinity, towards Mundu; Putting an ad during an IM conversation, and monetizing it is not as simple as putting a snippet of code on a web page, and then laughing all the way to the bank. It is not.

We can’t expect all software, to be free, all the time; So many of the people who suggest just putting an ad, are the same people who run Adblock on their Firefox browsers, and have modified their registries so they never see an ad from Yahoo.

There is room for free, ad supported and paid services. Let companies decide which revenue model works best for them.

Mundu has to figure out what they want to charge for their service. If the product is exceptional, people will pay the $11 for the software. After all, the folks who bought iPhone have already shown that they are willing to pay a premium for something that they like.

Tags : Opinion