And...this is why nobody can make any money providing decent services on the Internet, and as a result we're all subject to a constant onslaught of intrusive and scammy advertising. And those of us who might have been creating useful services are instead spending our time building ever more bogus advertising platforms...
Not really. Try running a service where you charge users. $40 per account is near the lower bound considering transaction costs and other overheads, before you add in the actual cost to provide the service. Any less and you may as well make it free since you don't need to provide reliable service or support for freeloaders.