So much of what we do online is free. I am well into my 6th decade so I tend to use a few things a lot, rather than a lot of things a little.
My list is something like this:
Google Apps, Yahoo, Various News sites
Flickr, Youtube, Pandora, Various video sites
Twitter, Tweetdeck, LinkedIn, Facebook,
Blogger, Wordpress, Posterous
GetSatisfaction, SurveyMonkey, Woopra
I spend ~100 hours/month using free sites and $100/month on Internet-related services (Netflix, NYTimes, ComCast and hosting). A dollar per hour is a great deal for me, but it alone it won't sustain a business. So where does the money come from? There are several Internet business models, but ultimately the money comes out of somebody's pocket.
1.Hope - Gain enough users/uniques to enable monetization or acquisition
2. Freemium models - 5% of the users subsidize the other 95% (on a good day).
3. Ads - promotional dollars filter down to cost of real goods and services, bought online or in the real world.
4. Risk Money (ie. venture captial) - equity wealth creation and redistribution.
5. Virtual goods - a cross between donations and Ads IMO.
6. Donations - .org
7. Taxes & fees - .gov & .edu if you use them.
Did I leave out any?
