Everyone seems very caught up in the whole idea of internet monetization these days.  One of the problems most websites seem to have when deciding on a revenue model is dealing with the fact that people aren’t used to paying for internet services.  As a result, ad-supported models are the most common revenue source on the internet.  I fall into the same boat as most of my generation – growing up with free everything on the internet results in not wanting to pay for anything on the internet.  However, there are several tools and services that I find valuable enough I’d be willing to pay for them, even though they’re free:

Gmail:  Google’s email service blows away all the competitors that I’ve used, which includes most of them.  Their spam filter actually works, labels and filters are easy to use, and everything is conversational.

Google Maps: I don’t know why anyone out there still uses Yahoo Maps or Mapquest.  Google has street view, the best search functions, and even Google Earth.  Between my laptop and my iPhone, it’s my complete GPS and navigation system.

Firefox:  I’m not sure where Mozilla’s funding to keep Firefox free comes from, but it’s a browser that provides real value to me.  It’s the most flexible, most user-friendly, and fastest (with a few tweaks) browser out there.

Facebook:  I’m not a huge fan of the Facebook interface, but at this point it serves as a valuable address book and catalogue of all my friends.

Twitter: Twitter is quickly turning into both my main online conversational tool and my RSS reader.  It’s also becoming a potential threat to search engines.

WordPress: WordPress is pretty much amazing.  A great interface and blogging platform that I’ve come to rely heavily upon in the last several months.

Now I’m not saying these should suddenly become pay services, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind as websites I would pay for if they suddenly started charging.  When I think about it, they all fall into a couple of similar categories: interfaces, communication tools, and services that replace older non-internet offerings.

Then there’s another category.  There are many other sites I find useful, but if they began to charge I would find a free alternative.  However, if suddenly every website became a paid site with no free alternatives, here are some more I would likely continue to use:

Popurls, Evernote, Flickr, Google News, Wikipedia, & Craigslist

This is still a very small percentage of the total sites I use, which means the rest are all better off with ad-supported revenue models.  The good news is as traditional media channels continue to flounder, advertising budgets will shift more towards the internet.  This should result in steady growth in internet ad revenues in the near future, and continued growth of useful sites and services that I and many others enjoy for free.  I can deal with free.