Here's what I wrote tonight before I took out the snipping shears:

Q) Why should I pay money when other programs and websites are free?

A) Our answer is pretty simple: if you like us better, you'll want to pay our modest fees. We feel they're fair and the money lets us keep making our products better and better.

We're not some corporate juggernaut, throwing money and bandwidth away just to capture mindshare to inflate our stock value. We don't secretly have an "acquisition strategy", hoping to be bought out by someone.

Truth is, we've all worked for companies like that, and we want no part of it. Something gets lost when the suits take over, and your memories are too precious to let suits make policy decisions that short-change real people.

Around the world, there are millions who wish to remember more of their lives, their loved ones, their communities. We can help them do this, and this is a worthy and rewarding task.

But we need to eat. And $44 for lifetime Tidepool upgrades isn't a lot to ask, nor is $52 a year for a basic Storymill membership with 250 megabytes.