From: Laurent Giroud <laurent.giroud_at_libertysurf.fr>
Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 15:28:33 +0200

> They provide free services that are very, very popular on the web. If you
> don't like what they are doing, then don't use their services. However,
> don't refer people to google-watch.org which is a joke in and of itself.
> Google-watch's main complaint with google is that context sensitive ads now
> appear on the side of google searches. THE SERVICE IS FREE FOR CRYING OUT
> LOUD. If you don't want to deal with ads, then find yourself an ad-free
> search engine (that likely won't find you very much information) and use it
> and stop complaining about how google has become corrupt.

I don't want to enter the debate regarding google, but I'd like to point that there is no such thing as a free service.

As long as it costs resources to the people who provide it, someone has to pay it.
In some cases those costs are visible : fundations such as the FSF receive funding from individuals or companies, you pay to buy products (food, devices...) or services (phone, TV).
In some cases they are not : such is the case of ads-supported sites such as google. You don't see the costs, but you certainly pay them when you buy products advertised on those sites (the same is true for cable or satellite TV which is mostly paid by ads) : you can't avoid paying for those services even if the cost is diluted.

Rockbox is free because people give away their time, Google certainly isn't.

I'll stop here since that's clearly off topic, I just thought this point was important (to me at least) enough to remind it :)

Best regards,
Laurent
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Received on 2004-05-01