Why do they all want 'Free'??? (No, NOT Surfers...)
 

Webmasters?

Just thinking out loud here really, but I notice a lot of people asking for simple scripts or applications, but insisting that they must be 'free'

Surely if you are wanting stuff to use online to earn you money, it makes sense to at least pay a small amount for things, if only to help development?

No, I'm not selling anything myself, nor am I made of money. But I just think that always wanting the free option, is a false economy that leads to a longterm negative effect in the future.

Me? I'd rather pay $50 or so, for something that I'm gonna use, than go for something 'free'... But thats just me.

Adult webmasters aren't the smartest bunch on the net. We already lost the brightest minds from this industry to mainstream, and are still the dumping ground of broke ass lazy buggers with pipe dreams of making millions with $0 down. One of the problems is newbies are largely led by their peers who have about 0 business sense and no money themselves.

But marketing to the simpletons is quite easy. They would happily invest $200 of effort to get $50 worth of something 'free'.. and that can be worked to your advantage when marketing to adult webmasters. Dangle the 'free' carrot and they just cant help themselves.

Many webmasters pay for scripts :)

I recently was looking for a free links script. I found one and I am using it.

The reason is because I don't make a million dollars a year. I can't invest in $100 for a script when half of them don't work, or don't work for me. And I can't pay extra for installation, well I could, but why? I am capable of installing most scripts successfully.

Another reason is because I was looking for a basic script. I didn't need all the bells and whistles for adding an extra page/section to my site.

So now that I think of it all my scripts were free. why? Well Nubiles is an awesome script, sure I have to stick to the teen or general niche, but it is a powerful script and it does what I want. It didn't cost $300 or $1500. And I use the free version of smart thumbs, and honestly it was the only free TGP script that I got working. I don't like it that much.

I am all about try before you buy, and many or most free scripts come with a price.

What about WordPress? Do you use it? do you use many copies of it? What is YOUR deal? You better than me? You better than the other thread starters looking for "basic" or "simple" scripts?

Really, why do you give a shit?

Try before you buy, and I am so glad of that

Yes, I use it. Why wouldn't I?

No need to take it so personally. I never said anyone was any better than anyone else. I was simply making an observation - 'Thinking Outloud' - Again, no need to take it personally.

I dont really give a shit. What you or anyone else does is irrelevant to me. I was just making an observation that I always see people saying that it must be free... Thats all.

Yeah, my bad. I did go off for a minute.
But I hope the other parts of my post gave you some insight on why some folks go free first.

i find a lot of scripts do not work, or not much good.

i think it would be best to have a 30 day tial.

i have use a lot and got rid of them after a few hours as they are total rubbish.

man it is easy ... if you are webmaster, it doesnt mean you are making money. if you started yesterday and you are putting up your first site, its normal that you want to try it for free. if you make some small money, cool, but still not reason to pay for scripts that are similar available for free. since you will start making some nice money, so you can put them to your business and not only to food and loans etc, i think most of the webmasters start paying for something that is useful and will pay itself ... :2 cents:

Free Trials, and try before you buy - I'd want to do that myself.

However my observation was not about people saying it must have a trial. It was about it must be free - period.

But anyway, I can see that it does sound like I'm being a smart arse - Saying the above, to generate controversy and get sig views... But thats not why I made it... And thats NOT what I mean. So I will drop out of this thread for a bit, cause I dont want anyone to think its a personal thing :)

Peace - Out

Really, we aren't?

A few years ago I stepped back and decided to figure out what would make me tons of money. I put a lot of thought into this. I wanted to make a product that everyone in the US uses daily. Think about that for a moment. The best answer I came up with was soap, shampoo, and toothpaste - and good luck breaking into that market.

I ended up doing blogs. Adult blogs. Let's talk about this for a moment. Most people in the world do "X" amount of work and get paid "$X" for that work. Instead, I've discovered a business model where I do "X" amount of work and continue to pull in money from that work daily for the rest of my life with a minimum of effort. I think that's pretty smart really.

if any programs want to set me up with a free domain, hosting, scripts, design, content, traffic and submissions hit me up. we will have a long and productive relationship.

I was genralizing and focusing my comments on the diehard "must do everything for free crowd".

Though I think you approach is a good one and its one I tend to try and show those new to the industry too.

Why the fuck would I pay for a script if I can get a free one that is just as good? Take Wordpress as example. Why would I pay for another blog-script?

Hava you not heard?

It's the Internet so it should be free.

Except if you're selling it LOL

I both pay for scripts and use free ones and to be honest the ones I paid for I ended up spending more money on them just to get all the bugs sorted out. Most of the paid scripts also do not have the support that the free ones have and when I complained about one of the paid scripts they did not even bother replying back. Im not saying all paid scripts are the same but most sell a script and then just dont support or upgrade it.
I am now always very wary when paying for scripts I have 3 which I cannot even use becuse of secuirity issues with them and no support from the guys that wrote the scripts.