Netscape had a weird policy, giving away their browser free for academic and non-profit use, before finally giving it away for free to compete with MS. I actually remember bragging to a friend when I was in college, since I didn't have to pay for Netscape, but he did...
I do not believe that any legitimate valuable software product has lost a significant piece of their marketshare to free software. The free options HAVE required that the paid software have a true value though.
Which browser are you using?
Not only have open source browsers like Firefox gained huge market share, but if you remember back in the day, you had to pay for any browser until MS decided to start giving IE away.
It would be cool for bands to be able to stream their shows live on their own sites, facebook pages, etc.