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The thing about the "free" argument that doesn't work for me (as it doesn't work for a lot of people), is that it always breaks down to things people could do... not what they will do. In other words, they could tell their friends, who may decide to pay for a book, and maybe the right freeloader will contact the right publisher for you, etc, etc.
And while I wait out these maybes, I don't get any compensation for my work... just a lot of comments on the web that go, "Whoo-Hoo! Steve is great for giving his stuff away for free! I hope he becomes a big success!" Mm-hmm.
Well, there may be a lot of free content out there, but no one is making a living off of it. They're making a living off of selling something, even if it's not the actual book, but something that the book lures you to, like a subscription site, or a product page, or a printed version of the book you just read.
That's why I see the patronage or subsidizing model to be a good one: It allows you to give the e-books away, but you still get compensated, even given all the "coulds" and "maybes." And again, it's a method that's worked for TV and radio for a few years now, so I'd call it a proven model.
And it allows an e-book to exist as a product on its own, not simply as a shill's hook to get you to a detergent site.
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