You're right, Mr. Spock. By today's standards, not wanting to rake in huge profits is illogical.

Oh! My! God! how can A-N-Y-B-O-D-Y NOT be in it for the money...???

There is another breed of rival lurking online for traditional media, and it is perhaps the most vexing yet: call it purpose-driven media, with a shout-out to Rick Warren, the author of "A Purpose-Driven Life," for borrowing his catchphrase.

These are new-media ventures that leave the competition scratching their heads because they don't really aim to compete in the first place; their creators are merely taking advantage of the economics of the online medium to do something that they feel good about. They would certainly like to cover their costs and maybe make a buck or two, but really, they're not in it for the money. By purely commercial measures, they are illogical.

Probably the best-known practitioner is Craigslist.org, the online listing site. Although it is routinely described as a competitor with — and the bane of — newspaper classified ads, the site is mostly a free listings service that acts as a community resource.

[...]

And let's not forget that Google began life as one of these
ventures . . .

[...]

The shining example is the Firefox browser* that is available free for download and has emerged as a credible rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. And, for icing on the cake, Firefox makes money for its not-for-profit owners because Google pays to be its search engine.

let the competition scratch their heads until they're bald... seeing successful enterprises arise that are doing "something that they feel good about" is truly inspiring...

* Note: profmarcus is a very satisfied firefox user...

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