[OmarShehata]

This is very well articulated but don't forget that another big reason is simply buying a new start/commitment to learning something.

If I see a course on SQL, sure I could get all that content for free, but I am more likely to commit if I paid something for it, and I know that, and I'll convince myself it's a good investment because it's curated etc even if I ultimately end up using a lot of free resources anyway to do my learning.

[nickjj]

Yep paying does help to move things forward.

The only exception to that is domain names of course.