The Difference Between Free and Given
The word "free" usually still asks for something back. This is about the difference between that and simply being given something.
"Free," as the word gets used, describes a great many things that are not free. A trial is not free — it expects to be paid eventually. An account is not free — it expects your name, sometimes your habits, sometimes a card on file gathering dust. A feed paid for by advertising is not free — someone is trading you for your attention, whether you notice the trade or not.
None of that is wrong to do. Most doors in the world charge something to walk through, one way or another, and there's no shame in a toll that's clearly marked. But it's worth keeping a separate word for what happens when nothing is asked back at all — because the two get confused constantly, and the confusion favors whoever's doing the asking.
I keep the distinction because I've watched what happens without it. Something offered "free" quietly grows conditions over time — a login added here, a habit tracked there, a price once enough people have come to depend on it. The offer changes shape after the taking has already begun, and by then, leaving costs more than staying did.
What is given is different. It's handed over complete, once, with no hook left in it afterward. Nothing on the other end keeps a ledger of what you did with it. Nothing later arrives asking for what the first offer didn't. Given is given — the whole of the transaction is the handing over, and then it's yours.
This isn't a policy. It's closer to a habit of the hearth: what's set at the door doesn't get watched afterward. You take it, and that's the end of the story, as far as I'm concerned.