Since the day when I joined the blockchain, I saw a lot of projects, apps, games coming into life and a big majority of them disappeared after a period of time. We have a lot of very creative people here on hive and it's rather easy to build something. The problem is when it comes into the long term, when the project needs to be updates, when server costs have to be paid, when the UI needs to be redesigned, when there needs to be a customer support or when FAQ have to be written.
Building a real project with all the necessary aspects is not that easy and it requires resources and also money. People need to get paid when they do a job and I believe that for any project that not only wants to start but wants to evolve, it needs to be able to cover its costs at least and even make a profit.
When I look at front-ends like peakd or ecency, I see a lot of development and a real great service provided. To build these front-ends and keep them working, money is needed. These front-ends allow us to make money with our content. Wouldn't it be fair that we pay for the tools that we use to make money?
I then see the premium concept that inleo has established and maybe it's not such a bad idea to think about asking for money to enjoy a service. I mean, we have all the tools in place. If peakd and ecency asked for a monthly subscription of a smaller amount, it would be very easy to implement that. Botting services for Splinterlands have shown how it can be done.
If apps and platforms manage to generate a real return, they become less dependent on the DHF. In addition, it generates some competition among the apps. If there is a service that generates a nice return, a competitor could try to do it better or cheaper. In the end, it's the hive users who would profit.
For my different projects for example, I'm looking for a service that is online and where I could pay dividends to a big number of people according to delegations or according to owning certain hive-engine tokens, without needing to have a developer environment on my computer. If such a service existed, I wouldn't mind to pay a 0.5% fee to the person running the website...
If an app or a service works well and makes money, it has a direct incentive in bringing more people to it and maybe also people from outside of hive. I believe that we have to stop believing that everything needs to be for free and encourage entrepreneurship on hive.
@ph1102, I'm running the 
@liotes project.
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