How "Free" Makes Money

This is an excellent post about how offering a product or service for free isn’t necessarily incompatible with the profit model.

It comes close to answering some of the questions I have (in my ongoing series of “how the hell do these guys make money”) on Google, Linux, and CraigsList, and touches on a very interesting subject for entrepreneurs. The most important underlying point (from a business standpoint) is this quote:

“It made money packaging and providing support. The code was free, the expertise on how to use the free code was not.”

As an obsessive ideas guy, I’ve made hundreds of attempts at little business ventures, with Flicker Gaming being my most recent project. I’ve never had a strong focus on creating or selling a product with this site, and it’s good to read about how markets morph and adapt to reward through avenues they’d never expect.