[zkmon]

It's exactly the same strategy followed by the Silicon Valley for the past 3 decades to beat the IBM-era companies. Google gave everything free. Social media stuff was free. Video calls are free. Bloggers gave content for free. A lot ot open-source product developers did managed offerings of the free products.

[weitendorf]

Free + Open is simply how you earn credibility and user trust when you don’t already have it.

That doesn’t mean the trust is unearned once gained, or a bait and switch, or purely Machiavellian either btw.

Consumers and businesses need credible branding to feel like they can trust vendors who provide them with the products they value or deem mission-critical, because it creates accountability and makes it less risky to depend on.

Open source addresses the credibility/accountability/branding/counterparty problems simultaneously, and adds to a permanent intellectual commons we all benefit from. It’s legitimately just Good