The web is becoming more and more populated web applications. We have social networking tools, we have web-based email clients, even web-based Microsoft office, and last but not least, we have a super powerful repository of knowledge (Google).
What do all these web apps have in common? They’re all free.
The great thing about a free web app is that it has the ability to create returning traffic. Just like how returning customers are very valuable to a store, returning traffic is the web equivalent. This fact alone wouldn’t make any economical sense, but after you figure out the marketing implication of a massive amount of returning traffic, that’s a huge amount of possible ad exposure, and that’s where free web apps make their money, off advertisement.
This is why free apps like free public television will continue to make sense. Certainly we’ll have to endure some ads every here and there, but they’re a small price to pay for what we’re getting.