There was a time when it seemed like everything was free on the internet.
In 2021, there were many free things on the web. If anywhere was free, it was the Internet. There were various free software that powered the websites that people use, and some of them were not even free enough.
There was, at the time, no such thing as a free lunch. In the digital age, there was simply no such thing as a paid lunch. Instead, it was all free.
We didn’t act rationally.
Some people said that they would pay for it, while others thought that open-source licenses were optional extras. Most of us came for the freebies, as doing so was much better than paying for something that was already free.
There was, of course, no such thing as a free lunch. The internet was a free lunch. It was always a free lunch. The idea that you could charge for something simply didn’t make sense.
If your digital ambitions were modest, you could do everything you wanted online without spending a penny.
The irrationality of free things was also shown by the companies that provided them.
One of the reasons that free seemed so plausible was that there were so many tech companies floating around. In 2014, Dropbox had a $10b valuation and $1b in funding.
One argument argued that once an app or article is written, there is no additional cost to make it work. However, it was more of a case that people were creating services that are cheaper than those made by companies.
It was mostly due to the amount of free stuff that became apparent. One product would be free, while another would be different.
Over time, even services that charge a small amount of money gave up. WhatsApp, for instance, said in 2016 that they wouldn't introduce third-party ads, but it was not clear how they would make money.
Despite the warning signals, it was still a little charitable. The tech industry was making so much money that it could subsidize other services without requiring users to pay.
And, in a way, it was.
Despite the protestations of WhatsApp, the reality was that there was money in the world. It was just out of sight.
Everything on the internet was funded by ads. The only way to make money was to place an ad on the site and then charge the consumer for something that was already free.
The tech companies were luring us in with promises of unlimited storage and personal data, and they would soon dump prices to put their competitors out of business. It was more than just a choice, it was also a choice to be left with no choice.
In 2018, photo storage giant Flickr ended their 1TB of free storage. In the following year, Google Photos also ended its unlimited storage offer.
Everpix and Picturelife were caught in the middle of the game, and it became clear that no one could play it. As a result, both services closed down, and Amazon’s free tier wasn’t enough to cover their costs.
There are plenty of alternatives to Google Photos and Flickr. But, as with many other online services, there are also paid tier options that are being bundled into bigger packages. For instance, Amazon’s cloud storage is called free if you have Prime. Also, Google One is similar to Apple One, which is a monthly subscription.
The free internet was a smoke and mirrors that exploited our data. Those who were wary of the usual economic order were forced to make money by taking over the web. For-profit companies were also forced to offer services for free.
Years ago, we added freedom to the word "free". Today, we write "free" in inverted commas and "free" in asterisks.
A friend asked him what game he had played for free. He paused and said that it was Star Wars Battlefront.
It was always going to happen that the free services would eventually be paid for. The companies that offer these services were so big and profitable that they could easily make this new model work.
