Microsoft keeps adding stuff to the online experience and not changing the price...
The ESPN3 stuff looks cool, netflix is awesome on the 360 (soon, you'll be able to change your queue on the box), last.fm, and probably more on the way (they look to be working on Hulu).
If all you want to do is play online, PS3 does that and it IS free, but xbox live does so much more. On top of that, I can't really fault them for charging for online play. It must take a ton of server power and bandwidth to support hundreds of thousands of gamers at the same time, with good reliability.
