Just how free is free?

There is no such thing as free.

Whether it is monetary or labor, something always has a price.

I think the tension with information wanting to be free and expensive is an interesting point, it kind of reminds me of Gollum/Smeagol from LOTR.

It’s like this really expensive tea store in Short Pump, VA.  It is called Tevana and I suppose it is trying to be like the über spoiled rich cousin of Starbucks.  It has a bunch of different samples of the tea that they sell to taste, and it is very yummy tea but it is like 5$ for a small tea and the prices rise for the other sizes and are worse if you want to purchase the tea leaves to brew at home.  Then they get you will all of the “accessories” of cups, kettles, honey, spoons, canisters etc. 

So case in point, though things may seem free, there is pretty much always gonna be a catch (or a small trial period before you have to pay ie some free versions of apps for iPod/iPhone and Netflix).

Other “free” items are also known as “freemiums,” where users can use the basic for free.  Examples include Skype, Google Books, Hulu (Hulu+) and Wordpress, just to mention a few.  With these you can get pretty good usage from the basic versions but for a certain amount of money per month you can have unlimited access and access to premium benefits.