iPhone applications, to me, are like any other product. If it's something that I find useful, I'm willing to pay for it. The perspective I put on the situation is that I spent $300 on the phone, and pay a good amount for service every month. Paying $2 here and $5 there for applications that really improve my enjoyment of the phone or streamline my life is worth it and are a small investment considering what I've already spent.

Have there been times I've bought an app and stopped using it soon after? Yes. But there are also movies I've disliked after buying a ticket and meals I've ordered that left me unsatisfied. The apps I do like that I've paid for (MouthOff, iLick, Bejeweled) more than make up for the duds.

The app store is a great way for individual developers or small teams to make a living producing amazing software. Whether you realize it or not, spending $20 annually on applications is helping make the tech world a better place by creating a software economy based on the usefulness of tools and not the marketing budget of large companies.