Bob Wyman: There has been all sorts of commentary recently about the new world of Web 2.0 applications and mashups built on "free" API's. Somewhere in all the excitement, people seem to have forgotten Robert Heinlein's famous warning:TANSTAAFL ("There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch..."). While mashups based on free API use are often innovative and sometimes delightful, the providers of the APIs being exploited in the mashups will eventually need to find some way to monetize the services they are providing or to at least limit the cost of providing these valuable services.
http://bobwyman.pubsub.com/main/2006/04/web_20_tanstaaf.html
Randy: Or people could start building free APIs with business models built-in. The problem is that most APIs are developed without reguard to financial scalability, by the hacker without any business sense.