"As a distributed team with no overhead, Helpful has the luxury of being able charge nothing — and if they can get mass distribution it won’t be hard to find channels of monetization."

Haven't they been paying attention to all the venture-funded teams that do reach mass distribution but are shuttered because they can't find a way to be profitable? Even a distributed team has overhead ... the team members are covering it instead of the company. And eventually they'll want (deserve) at least a salary.