Sep 13th, 2008
There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch–Really!
Remember that “free with purchase” isn’t free, and “free weekend minutes” isn’t free either. You’re actually paying for these kinds of services, it’s just that the seller is trying to have you think that you’re not. You wouldn’t have the “free with purchase” toy at the fast food joint if you hadn’t bought the kiddie meal and you wouldn’t have “free weekend minutes” if you weren’t paying the $50 or so bucks a month for the mobile phone in the first place!
Even lots of services that are free (rather than “free”) are paid for somehow. The public library? A fantastic deal, but in many ways, your tax dollars at work. Garbage pickup? Road repair? Same thing. Public parks and pools and beaches are exactly the same. They’re not really free, they’re “free”, or rather, paid for by taxpayers.
To use a more Geek example, those free services like Google and Yahoo! are paid for somehow, right? Advertising is one of the chief ways. Even this Web site is paid for by those things! So while there are great things that don’t directly take money out of your pocket, it’s important to remember that there really is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone’s paying for it somehow, somewhere!
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