Marketing costs now exceed software development costs. Giving away software can be cheaper and more effective than buying ads. Treat free software as a marketing expense, not a product loss.
The biggest thing that's increased over time is actually marketing costs. It's not the creation of software. So if you just give away the software for free, it's cheaper from what we've calculated for most industries than it would be to pay for the marketing dollars. Like if you look at software for free as a marketing expense, it's more effective than paying for the traffic. It makes sense.
