That's a side effect of the way we've educated the market to expect everything to be "free." That leaves the only option available being indirect monetization through ads or in-app purchases or something similar to that.
It was funny when the corporatists here blamed consumers for using free (or “free” or whatever) services, falling into the FB trap etc. As if that mattered at all? As if FB and its ilk wouldn’t use the Free strategy every time in order to grow humoungous or fail? Of course they would bet their money on network effects over getting money in the short term—there’s no point in a boutique social network. Those hypothetical consumers who wanted to pay upfront for a 2K user social network (patently irrational but okay) would have remained unserviced.
Once upon a time, it was illegal to discount something to gain market share and then charge extra once you've bullied out your competition. Technically it's still illegal, but good luck finding enforcement.
This is called dumping and yes it was and maybe still is illegal with things like commodities and manufactured goods.
It was never enforced with software or services. If it had the entire standard VC startup playbook would be different.
It’s also never been enforced internationally. China has arguably been subsidizing its industries and effectively dumping cheap manufactured goods for years to become the workshop of the world, and it works.
