The NYT has another great story about that survived the last years shake out and changed there revenue model quite often. A good product can not be harmed by bad sales :-) Just kidding...

"Intranets.com switched strategies twice before getting it right. In its original incarnation as Intranetics, it sold its software package to about 200 customers for $5,000 each, racking up about $1 million in sales.

The software, which had to be installed on a company's server, enabled the users to manage data and documents and to communicate with employees in scattered locations.

Demand stagnated, however, so Intranetics changed course in 1999, renaming itself Intranets.com and offering its software free.

Within 90 days, it had signed up 60,000 people, companies or organizations. That number grew to 1.3 million users spread around the world, using 50 million on-line minutes a month doing everything from sending e-mail messages, checking company data or taking part in company discussion groups."