Parties turning to Internet to drum up contributions: "Direct mail and telephone solicitations are the traditional tools that Republicans and Democrats have relied on to solicit money in large-scale drives. But some candidates in 2000, such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., used the Internet to raise money quickly. Now the parties are trying to make better use of Web sites and e-mail to reach far more potential donors at far less expense - and engage supporters in grass-roots campaigning at the same time."

As more organizations from the "offline world" use the Internet to collect money, people will probably become more comfortable to spend cash online, not only for physical goods (the traditional Amazon.com scenario), but for electronic applications and content as well. Let's not forget that the intangible character of services makes it a traditional challenge to market them. Most software is more or less priced as high as customers are willing to pay for, since its marginal production cost is close to nil. That naturally leads some to think software should be free (as in beer) or very cheap, and that line of reasoning - based on costs, not derived value - is probably common too as far as web sites go. It's only getting worse when outsiders underestimate your expenses. "It costs nothing to host a web site, I could roll my own for free on Geocities." Ops, not!

It takes time to persuade "normal people" (i.e. the vast majority who doesn't work in the industry) to spend money on web apps/sites, if only because they can't physically grasp them. Most people will probably find it more natural to pay the web as they're increasingly solicited to pay through the web for various "real world" daily things, from political contributions to utility billing. It will really become easier to charge users for web sites when they stop thinking of them as virtual. They're not just made with hot air, you know?