It looks obvious

I saw the following description in CNN’s report from Davus . I guess this is the difference between someone who runs the most successful software company for the last 30 years and the rest of the flock…

“Zennstrom, who recently sold his Skype Internet phone service to Ebay for $2.6 billion, says that Skype has been in business for 3-1/2 years… and in that time has signed up 75 million users. I’m floored by the sheer scale of that, until Gates brings us back to earth. He jumps in and asks, How many of the 75 million are paying customers? Zennstrom doesn’t say (or mumbles it out in a way I can’t catch) but their exchange launches a terrific conversation about building free Web products that generate truly enormous user bases then monetize them.”

Can it be that they really believe that the entire industry can build its business on monetizing?