I’ve been around advertising and marketing a long time. Free is still the best hook by far. I think most people know there’s no free lunch, but it gives you an incentive to do what you want to do anyway. It’s like those car ads, $5,000 cash back! How does that work?
I ‘ve got Google Chrome and Google Earth on my computer – very good applications. I use Google Analytics. It’s all “free.” But there’s a cost in there somewhere. GoogleSoftwareUpdateDaemons are always trying to phone home. Most people probably don’t know or don’t care, but it’s unsettling since it happens many, many times a day. They can’t be wanting to update an application 10 times a day. The queries come in many forms, going to different intended destinations. Though I’m not particularly the paranoid type, there’s more in there than just trying to keep my couple applications up to date …