[freshlog]

Would you feel more confident that the app is going to be around in the long haul if they charged you money for using it?

See my other comment about charging users money too.

[georgemcbay]

Charging money just by itself isn't enough to boost my confidence, charging money and reaching a publicly obvious critical mass of users combined would help but then you've still got a chicken and egg problem in creating that critical mass.

[freshlog]

Good point. I think it helps to learn more about the people behind the app and their motivations.

I made Handpick (http://handpick.me) as a side project and have not taken any outside investment. Hence I have no investor pressure to obtain a critical mass of users in an insane period of time.