Paying for Google

Jason asks Would you pay $5/month to use Google's services. Lots of responses in the comments. I guess the point is that we do pay $/month to use Google's services, just indirectly. Everytime we (and that means everyone who uses Google) buy anything from a company that advertises on Google, we are supporting the advertising budget of that company. And it's that advertising budget that funds Google services for "free" to us. So while I individually may not click on an ad link, or indeed ever buy from any company that advertises on Google, there are an awful lot of people who are. Now the interesting thing to work out would be how much are we paying (indirectly).