When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
The Free software movement (FSM) was established upon the idea or the syntactic consensus that "Free" means freedom and that freedom generally means control, mostly control over the computer programs and - by extension - the computers.
In English, the "Free" can also means no-cost (gratis), or no visible/immediate cost.
If some social control media site tells you it is free to use, who stands to benefit? "Free" means "I pay for you"... "for now!"
Last month we published: Mastodon and the Fediverse Have an Issue: Liability for Content (Even in Other Instances) and Costs.
I generally don't dislike "free" (gratis), but I distrust it. Why is this free? Who's covering the costs? Am I the product here?
I want "Free" (libre), not "free". I pay for many things that people get for free. For instance, this month I paid nearly 300 pounds for hosting of my site and E-mail. Most people use 'free' E-mail like GMail. Why is that E-mail disservice 'free'? Why does Alphabet/Google pay for it? So that it can spy on and 'monetise' every E-mail sent to and from me when I correspond with a GMail user?
Either way, there's "no free lunch". Better become better aware of whose financial interest/s you depend on.
Having already lost 3 Fediverse accounts (the instances went offline), I also know from mistakes/errors what not to do anymore. Sure, some people do things for free, but for how long? █