I'm generally not a huge fan of DHH -- he's a brilliant guy, to be sure, but he's also arrogant as all get-out, and if you know me, you know I'm no fan of arrogance, particularly when it comes to my fellow programmers -- but on the subject of Web applications and their so-called "monetization," the 37Signals partner is dead-on as far as I'm concerned:

It's not rocket surgery. I mean it's really just that simple three-step idea: You have a great application, you ask money for it, if people like it, they'll pay, and you profit.

A great little video (~30 minutes) lifted from YCombinator's 2008 Startup School. I attended in '06, myself -- fantastic learning experience.

But I do wholeheartedly agree: I pay happily for a number of Web applications that add value to my life: Flickr ($25 annually), Vimeo ($65 annually), Mozy ($20 monthly) -- it's not a huge list by any means, but it's something, and I've bought a number of software applications in my day, too, ranging everywhere from twenty bucks to several thousand. If you build something worth paying for, people will pay for it. Simple as that, really.

And as an aside, I love that he compares the odds of any one of the event's attendees creating The Next Facebook (as opposed creating to a modest, profitable business) to being victimized by airline terrorism. It's a tad crass -- what else would you from DHH? -- but also statistically sound.