I agree with this. Certain businesses simply wouldn't exist today had they attempted to charge from the start. Although personally, I wouldn't want attempt to start a business like that. As the original article said, there are only 100 sites in the Alexa 100.
Since this articles was basically agreeing with the original 37Signals article, I'll comment on that as well. 37Signals tends to sensationalize their thoughts and try make any model that isn't theirs sound tired or thoughtless. It's fine for driving traffic to their blog and they are successful at what they do. They aren't billionaires either nor have they run a large scale company where their "getting real" concepts aren't quite so easy. You can't analyze every problem down to a simple solution.
They should be looked at as leaders for companies who have early revenues and profitability but their credibility for commenting on other models is extremely questionable and needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Since this articles was basically agreeing with the original 37Signals article, I'll comment on that as well. 37Signals tends to sensationalize their thoughts and try make any model that isn't theirs sound tired or thoughtless. It's fine for driving traffic to their blog and they are successful at what they do. They aren't billionaires either nor have they run a large scale company where their "getting real" concepts aren't quite so easy. You can't analyze every problem down to a simple solution.
They should be looked at as leaders for companies who have early revenues and profitability but their credibility for commenting on other models is extremely questionable and needs to be taken with a grain of salt.