By Slanted Light

I'm still fairly new to this fandom thing *g*, but here's my twopence worth.

First off to your original question - there's the question of where that money goes and the fact that someone is making money off someone else's copyrighted characters. My answer would have to be no, I wouldn't pay for them because A) there's a principle involved and B) the reason I read so much fanfic is because it's free and easily available on the net. I'm not being tight. This is a hobby that I can enjoy without feeling guilty because it's not costing us anything.

Is there a difference between distributing things via paper publication and via e-fic publication?
Yes. The very reason that you've given, imo. Paper publication means that someone has paid out money for printing. An e-fic, well it could be argued that someone has taken the time to put it in a downloadable format, but to my mind that's different as there has been no financial outlay.