Why do companies offer free software utilities? (email, installing, Windows)
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As far as free lunches, there are many in the software world.
For example, some major software companies such as Google provide a variety of free software. Other scenarios are companies that offer a free version with the hope you will buy the paid version.
Audacity, as an example, is not a company. It is a team of people working working for free. Amazing, eh?
I think the general answer would be to sell advertising. A secondary objective would be to introduce you to their products and try and sell you something else.
Why do companies like Audacity, PDF Gear, 7zip, etc offer free software utilities?
"There's no such thing as a free lunch" -well-known truism.
So where's the pay-back for companies to offer free software?
Many provide a "stripped" down version for free in hopes you pay for the full version. Some will provide a consumer version for free while the Enterprise version is not.
In cases like Google and Facebook - While you aren't paying for their services with money - you are providing them with data/information as well as providing their ad sponsors with an audience. Google also has paid/enterprise tiers of their services/products (G Suite).
In the case of Audacity and 7zip - these are open source software and maintained by individual or consortium of folks that volunteer to maintain them. This is why you won't get a lot of support other than manuals and/or forums.
Many provide a "stripped" down version for free in hopes you pay for the full version. Some will provide a consumer version for free while the Enterprise version is not.
In cases like Google and Facebook - While you aren't paying for their services with money - you are providing them with data/information as well as providing their ad sponsors with an audience. Google also has paid/enterprise tiers of their services/products (G Suite).
In the case of Audacity and 7zip - these are open source software and maintained by individual or consortium of folks that volunteer to maintain them. This is why you won't get a lot of support other than manuals and/or forums.
Fully agree with what macroy said.
A lot of people think Google is this great company because they offer free software/services to people for free. They are actually the smartest/sneakiest. A company that takes your money for a product or service has to offer some sort of a privacy agreement where your data is to be kept safe and not sold.
In case of Google, it is the exact opposite. Instead of taking your money and profiting once, they reuse the personal user data they collected as a part of the EULA for ads which they charge others. It is ridiculously lucrative as they make money from the same piece of data in many ways.
This was a major case some years back where Apple and Google (probably poured a ton of money) became exempt from such privacy restrictions because they were the "service provider" to their respective smartphones users. So, if you are using an iPhone or Android phone, you have zero privacy when using the phone. If you are truly interested in taking Apple or Google out of the loop when using your smartphone, then you might be interested in reading up on the eFoundation.
Only free lunch is the open-source software developed by one or multiple people because they believe in software should be available to others ideology much like the founder of GNU, Richard Stallman.
They may accept donations but typically do not harass people using their software to do so.
If you find any such software of any worth, it might be worth while to donate whatever you can to motivate their developer(s), to keep on keeping on.
Apple provides an "Utilities Folder" in every Mac computer. Inside there are a series of utilities, including "Disk Utility" (the one I use the most for erasing and partitioning). Also "Preview" is a very useful app that among other things allows for editing PDF forms. That said, nothing is free, including the supposedly free apps Apple incorporates in the Mac, since Macs aren't inexpensive.
... companies such as Google provide a variety of free software. Other scenarios are companies that offer a free version with the hope you will buy the paid version.
Audacity, as an example, is not a company. It is a team of people working working for free. Amazing, eh?
With Google, they are providing free software,but they are an intelligence-gathering net, scooping up your personal data and selling to who-knows. That I get.
But Audacity, I don't think, is gathering intelligence, nor selling advertising.
Do you have a source for the Audacity people all working for free? All? Or just using volunteers, with a paid management team?
With Google, they are providing free software,but they are an intelligence-gathering net, scooping up your personal data and selling to who-knows. That I get.
But Audacity, I don't think, is gathering intelligence, nor selling advertising.
Do you have a source for the Audacity people all working for free? All? Or just using volunteers, with a paid management team?
I don't know where to read up on this stuff.
It really is a "phrase based" web search away such as "who is the developer of audacity?"
With Google, they are providing free software,but they are an intelligence-gathering net, scooping up your personal data and selling to who-knows. That I get.
That's truly not what they are doing. This is a giant misconception. Google is an advertising company. They, of course, collect data on you, as much as they can...but they don't sell that data. They sell: YOU. Anonymous YOU.
An advertiser pays Google to do this:
Show my ad to anyone who Googles "XX phrase" that is between the ages of 35-45 and lives within a 150 mile radius of Charleston and is married and has 2 kids."
Google then shows that ad to those users. At the heart of it all that truly is the extent of it. And, of course, Google shows you ads for it's paid services too.
You personal data is always kept safe and, most importantly, anonymous.
Quote:
But Audacity, I don't think, is gathering intelligence, nor selling advertising.
Is it truly that hard to believe that some people just do a thing because...they enjoy it? And WANT to make free software?
Here's another example: https://www.irfanview.com/
Odd name for a free image and editing viewer? It was written by one guy, Irfan Skiljan. Lives in Austria. I think he is or was a professor somewhere. Anyway, he's been giving this software away for decades. Millions of people have used it, 100% free for personal use. I, after using this for years, emailed him one day to say "How can you give this awesome program away for free? It's always the first thing I install on Windows and I love it!"
He wrote me back something to the effect "I've always been annoyed at the prices Microsoft and Adobe charge for their software so I wanted to offer mine for free...and you can always donate if you want to!"
So then I got current job as IT Manager and started installing Irfanview on our work PC's. It's fantastic at batch renaming and printing. So then, since IrfanView is NOT free for business, I happily paid the $10 for each license. And literally got a "Thank you" from Irfan after every purchase.
Just check the site...looks like he raised the price...it's $12 now. (Note the free version has ZERO locked features that you have to pay for).
2nd example: I used AVG Virus software free for years. Also at my IT Job I was looking to replace the AV software we used at the job..and I went with AVG for 2 years. So they made about $2,000 eventually off me after offering a free product.
Are you trying to say that there is not a thing in the world "as a free lunch"?
If that is what you are implying about, I agree 100%. Nobody is going to give-away (free) anything that has taken time and money to create.
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