We all love anything which is free, and this is completely natural. After all, how can anyone resist such a great bargain- getting something for nothing ?
Ubiquitous internet access has made the expectation that everything will be available for free far more prevalent. Email is free; Google maps are free; many high quality apps are free; videos on YouTube are free; and lots of music is available for downloading free. After all, if so much stuff is free, then why bother to pay for anything.
Interestingly, this is a complete change of mind-set. A generation ago, if you got anything for free, you would treat this with a lot of suspicion. The first question you would ask is - What's the catch ? Why is the seller giving something away ? Today, we expect everything to be free in the online world, and are very reluctant to pay for anything !
However, there is a huge price we pay for consuming free stuff - and the tragedy is that we don't even realise this!
Because email is free, we send out tons of it - and mark everyone and their aunt on any email we send , which is why we are drowning in it. Most of us can't keep up the with emails which overload our inbox, as a result of which many important emails get lost or overlooked. Also, the subtle downside to this free channel is that many of the emails we send are sloppy and poorly written, as a result of which the signal to noise ratio is poor, and communication actually suffers. A tool which was meant to help us talk to each other actually ends up causing confusion and boredom. If we had to pay for each email we send ( like we used to have to pay for posting letters in the past), I am sure we would be much more thoughtful about both their quantity and quality - and this would be all for the best !
Because we can watch hours of videos online for free, we end up spending hours binging on YouTube, without even realising how many hours we have wasted. It's easy to consume content passively, but this just ends up dumbing us down, as we lose our ability to think critically and analytically. Most young people don't know how to think logically or judiciously, which is why the level of public debate has dropped so precipitously in recent years.
The fact is that nothing is free. The price we pay is the time and attention we consume on these "free" channels - and the opportunity cost is huge. Our social skills atrophy, and we are no longer able to hold a real life conversation for more than a few minutes; or to engage with people when we meet them face to face.
Even worse, we don't realise that there is no such thing as a free lunch. When a company gives us a product for free, the truth is that we end up being the product - without even realising this ! The reason Google offers search free is so that it can sell clicks to advertisers !
Finally, free products kill innovation. Because Google search is free, it becomes very hard for a competitor who may have a better product to enter the market. The monopoly which free creates ends up stifling creativity and progress.