

A Note about Freeware - e1ven
http://www.arachnoid.com/freeware/index.html

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GrandMasterBirt
I like this post. It is exactly right. This is sort-of like... Red Hat vs Cent
OS. Cent OS is essentially the freeware version of red hat. Yes yes OSS bla
bla bla. However, why are companies not pursuing cent? its free. Hell its
orders of magnitude cheaper than RH.

The answer is "freeware". Cent is freeware. When you need THEIR support, its
freeware. When you want a feature, its freeware. When you want someone to
spend an hour looking through forums and give you an answer to your problem,
its freeware. So many large companies see the value of getting Red Hat.

In the end freeware works just as well as OSS, adware, etc. Its just a
different business model. In many cases it makes sense, in many its useless.

Heres an interesting one though. It strikes me by surprise. League of Legends
uses a freemium business model. You play the game, earn IP to buy
characters/runes. You can pay money to buy the characters faster. You can pay
money to buy skins, which offer NO ADVANTAGE. So basically there is zero
crippled functionality when not paying them, However they will plow through
your money much faster than WoW ever would if you want to keep up with their
very fast release of characters (1-2 per month) especially if you are a casual
gamer. What would you call this model??? Is it still freemium? Maybe careware?

