What do you win with free software?

Question

Monetization

Right now, for almost all platforms, for different devices ... there is free software. Some receive money from it for advertising that they have introduced there, some write that it is generally completely free. Take for example wunderlist, which prompted me to this question. Well, everything is free in it, there seems to be no paid version. So what is the benefit of the company itself? What do they live for? Or it's like:
- They released a cool free program, you get to know us, look at how we write software with high quality ... and note that we also have paid programs (advertising on our own software).
I even began to read the privacy policy, because Google is also free for everything, but it collects information about the user, thanks to which it gets richer. Can wunderlist also analyze and use the notes of its users?

Answer 1

Very often, software can be paid for several years and money will be invested in it and invested to recruit users. And when there will be a lot of people, additional functions will be introduced in a paid mode. For example, Instagram seems to still not profit from anything, although it has a large number of users. They are waiting. Although I bought their Facebook, I think they could compensate for their losses with this money, and make a lot of money on it.

Answer 2

here are two examples with the same schema, the first is activecollab . I remember how this thing was written by one person many years ago as an alternative to basecamp. The thing was in php, you could put it yourself, open source and everything looked quite nice. Then there was a period of like six months, there were no new versions, and bugs grew. Then the author released a new version where all previous problems were solved, the product became even better, but the source code was closed and the product became paid.
the second example of Growl , it was quite recently when the product with the new version became paid, and the old version simply did not work on the new mac os

Answer 3

A company can release some part of a large product into the free float.
For example, an enterprise uses a task management system. There are no secret data in it, you can publish it. Or, when working with some device, they wrote a program for monitoring computer ports. It can also be published and offered to use for free.
And another option. Someone tried their hand, practiced. Then he began to make big projects, and decided to distribute his small one to users.

Answer 4

www.6wunderkinder.com/blog/2012/02/15/from-berlin-with-love-wunderkit-is-now-free-forever/

Answer 5

So you can burn out. I recruited a team, wrote free software, and while waiting, others did better. Well, they had more ideas. And what, someone will buy this software? Or the same Instagram, while they are waiting, many alternatives have appeared, free of charge. If they put up a price, many may flee to others. Of course, this will work if the user is very interested and tied to his software.

Answer 6

As an option - paid user support.

Answer 7

Well, for example, we released a free application for Android so that people go to our site more through it ...

Answer 8

Oracle, Sun, Noovell and so on support free Linux with a subscription fee for customer service, plus certification that the ORACLE subd will work exactly on this and that distribution kit, for example - not everyone has money for sparks, on which diesel fuel lives, dochertikov oracle lives now on suse.

Answer 9

Don't rule out "just for fun" projects. Some people (not sure about the companies) make their projects free without pursuing any self-interest. Subsequently, such a project can be bought by a company, but after the acquisition, the project still remains free.
Companies usually make money on paid support, premium accounts, and extra perks for money.