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by radmin 2210 days ago
Yes, please start charging. Aside from the effect it has on perceived trustworthiness, longevity, etc., giving away your work for free undermines others' ability to make a living selling theirs.
3 comments

giving away your work for free undermines others' ability to make a living selling theirs

If your product isn't better than the free one why should anyone pay for it?

If it is better, why are you worrying about competition that offers an inferior product? If anything, that should drive more customers to your business.

>giving away your work for free undermines others' ability to make a living selling theirs.

That's not his problem.

But it is. It’s called a race to the bottom. While it’s a normal price setting function of free markets that doesn’t mean its rational.
So people shouldn't have a blog, since people read that content instead of paid books, magazines or newspaper articles? Or post videos on YouTube, because TV and films aren't free? Or work on open source software, since that might save people the need to buy software from companies that are selling?

Truth of the matter is, an awful lot of things that were previously commercially viable simply aren't any more because people are happy giving them away for free or releasing them with ad support. Few people will buy a web browser or CMS or programming language compiler/interpeter/envrionment, because free competition has made commercial ones obsolete.

Either way, it's just life. Things that were once expensive services only available to wealthy became commoditised and affordable for pennies, and new types of business became viable in their place.

So if you're running a company selling a form service and free competition is outcompeting you, then you'll have to adapt or die like anyone else. Or find some value proposition people are willing to pay for in that area (support, customisations, lots of new features, a glossy design, etc).

If you can't compete with a free product that comes with no support or guarantee, maybe the problem is not the person who made their product free.
if your product is just the code, you have no product anyway.