Now Google, with its market valuation of more than $100 billion, has drawn the ire of the newspaper and book publishing industries, among others, which argue that its supposedly benevolent search robots have been usurping their intellectual property.

Purpose-driven media, by the way, are even more common in the software world. The shining example is the Firefox browser that is available free for download and has emerged as a credible rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. And, for icing on the cake, Firefox makes money for its not-for-profit owners because Google pays to be its search engine.

Another example of genius ideas from people who don't seek Internet riches is Chowhound.com. This nine-year-old site features community-generated restaurant review boards in various cities and steadfastly refuses to accept restaurant advertising. Rather than continue to grovel for donations and make a few dollars selling Chowhound books, the founders sold the company last month to CNET Networks, a Web business known for its reviews of technology products, for an undisclosed amount. Unlike Chowhound, whose independence and spirit it has vowed to maintain while helping to spiff up the site, CNET.com is chockablock with ads.

A fascinating new entrant in the field is LaLa.com, a music-swapping site introduced last month. Depending on where you are sitting, the LaLa concept is either brilliant (if you are a music fan with a lot of CD's you don't listen to, or if you are an artist) or terrifying (if you are a retailer of new or used music, or perhaps even a music label).

Here again, the founders are not in it just for profit. Rather, their idea is that despite all the cool new digital music services, well over 90 percent of the music industry sales are still in the CD format; most people still have CD's and artists don't gain any benefit from the sale of used discs. Many music lovers, the founders contend, feel disenfranchised by the way music is sold.

So LaLa is essentially a CD-swapping site that matches people who want one another's old CD's. It charges them a mere $1 a disc and provides the postage-paid envelopes to send them in for 49 cents apiece. Out of each dollar, the company voluntarily pays 20 cents to the performer on the recording; there is no more a legal obligation to do so than there is to pay General Motors a cut every time a used Chevy changes hands.

Bill Nguyen, the man behind several Silicon Valley start-ups, who is one of LaLa's founders, said that the service might work just as well at a cost of $4 a CD -- still a quite a bit cheaper than a typical used CD on eBay or in an East Village record shop -- but that making money wasn't the point.