Thanks in large part to the readers of this list, the time is past when people bought shrink-wrapped software off store shelves. Indie programmers must now give away their work to gain any market presence. So let's not pretend it's altruism.
Ballmer's invocation of the cancer analogy, while certainly incendiary, was not too far off the mark. Once one market participant gives away the farm, everyone has to follow suit. Now the money for mortgages and college tuitions has to come obliquely, i.e., telemetry and ad revenue.
