How Much Is Free Lunch?

I don't know who said that there is no such thing as free lunch. Why not?
If the point is someone someday will have to pay for that lunch, well... maybe. But the phrase about a free lunch is most often used in the context of: "Watch out. You'll have to pay for this lunch - eventually."

The fear sometimes gets the best of people.

Relax. Free lunch is free lunch is free lunch. You just have to make sure it is a free lunch and not a trap.

For anyone who uses common sense on a regular basis (you'd be surprised how many people don't) detecting a trap is easy. If some stranger wants your bank account information in exchange for a few million dollars, it's a trap. Obviously. If someone wants to give you a free website in exchange for signing up with an overpriced web hosting service, it's a trap. Less obviously so, but if you've done at least basic research on hosting, you would see it.

If someone wants to give you a free ebook in exchange for you reading it, it's a free lunch.

The problem with free lunch isn't the cost. The problem with free lunch is that there's too much of it, there are tons of it. Free lunch is endless like the Universe.

I am not just talking about the internet. Free libraries, free museums, free parks, free concerts, free fireworks, free wi-fi, free services, free radio and tv...

Internet is even bigger on free stuff. Even now, when it's less free than before.

Don't think for a minute that I am complaining about free lunch. Not at all. Not crazy. I am complaining about free lunch management. If there is no such a science, there should be.

Someone has to figure out how to manage free stuff, how to keep it in control, how to tame it...

As it stands today, I've gotten so much free stuff from the STSE2 that it's EATING ME for lunch.