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I think a trend has been widely established on line for pay vs free sites. I'm not sure why so many are questioning it.
The bottom line (to me) is that if the site will have a very large audience and not have exclusive information or service then an ad supported web site is the way to go. People will not pay for what they can get elsewhere for free. Although some free blogs even though pretty targeted topics get so much traffic/readers that they make a good living from their ad word income.
For exclusive information that interests a smaller target market and really provides value can work very well as a pay-as-you-go site.
For example, I pay to get access to the full HD videos produced on screencastsonline.com because it is high quality and not found elsewhere. However, if gmail started charging I would probably go elsewhere.
There is also a hybrid option where the majority of pretty public info is freely available and ad supported but subscribing brings you exclusive features. This can also work.
To answer your poll... the answer is it really depends.
BOb
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