Well, I might have originally not put this down but one experience prompted me to do a bit of justification on this topic by discussing about it.
Here is how it begins... as a code evangenlist every coder/developer wants to use the latest technologies available in best possible way & what more to ask for if they are available for 'free'.
Or 'are they'? Every-time we trespass on a piece of technological marvel we ask what's the cost and when we know it's free we pretty much 'forget' about it and start using it. Well, it's called a virtual free zone ... let's see how. Selling a product has various lure tactics to it, almost any product today would have some lure tactics involved - but ones which are fair and visible are the most beneficial as they give out the risks & advantages fairly.
As of today we use a lot of products off the cloud and start using them with the concept or notion of they being 'free' and available, so where do we lack they hit back at us at a later stage - may be in terms of capability limitation, data exposure, cost (yeah you heard it right - it was free wasn't it?) or performance(again you heard it - right - it was on the cloud wasn't it?). The first point where we presumably lack is asking the right questions the moment we start using the free product.
Suppose a well known service provider is giving a platform which allows using their software as a service but then it's free (well, it's not - it's just the matter of time when you found that out) - so day 1 you start using it, day 30 - you are quite satisfied with it, day 90 - you have already started putting that product out to a bigger base - started telling people about it, suddenly your product is peaking with everyone loving it and 'one fine day' - it stops functioning or doesn't function how it should (now what's the probability of that - well maybe 2%, but that probability was 2% when you started using it - it is now gone to be 60%). The only way to fix this is to buy a package which will get your product running again - but aah you were never told about - well, think on it - did you ask the right question?
Let's talk about another scenario - everything still running fine but you got bill on the product - and that is a figure which is 400% of what you capped your product budget on, you get amazed how that happened - when you get through to customer support - they tell you need to buy a support plan to give you information on why your bill shot up - so you think to yourself - seriously? - you got a free product based on face value of company selling it to you - well guess what - nothing comes on face value - you might have just learnt that - but then you have a more bitter experience since you are only trying to understand why your something which was capped at 20% max budget was charged at 400% (these days every big firm needs your credit card before you can start using their services), so now you have a headache of dealing with the customer support who will at best will assist you with information you already know - except that they will take away more time from that process making it lengithier which will probably negate your future plans to pursue with that product, and they are getting paid for it, so unless you want to buy additional support to get more information, which again you shouldn't be getting so fast until you agree to a term plan, so apparently now you lost more than what you could think of when starting with a 'free' product. And think for some time on the company which put those people in customer support, the manager you escalated the call to, the vp-product justifying the cause, they are all getting paid - to do what? justify 'nothing', no new information, same old stuff and who is paying for them - some poor company trying to get their product working, now that's not funny is it?
And this doesn't end here - if you start to quote your experience on a channel - there will be qualified people starting to negate your story and the company working at a probability to improve it would be 0.02%, that's the sorry part - as they earned their degree to do something constructive but now are just trying to re-sell a costly product back which was originally put on sale as free. So long story short - nothing comes free, ask the right questions, any company (whether it's the top 3 or bottom 3 worldwide) has a right to explain their package and product details - if they fail to do that, in sufficient detail, the idea to proceed is always an unknown risk as face value can be lost in a jiffy. The next thing you know - the company is sitting with your data which you already lost, which you need to pay to get back, and you cannot be sure that that firm might not be hacked tomorrow. It's very simple math but still it becomes very difficult most of the times.
Well, I would not quote the name but the experience quoted above is from one of the worlds best technology product firms and a startup trying to use their services - but that part doesn't surprise me at all but the part on the buying habits of the consumers really does and will not stop surprising me!
One of my resolutions on the new year is being a more informed consumer because I love technology and would always want to use the right & best suited for the job but would need to be fairly informed as well.
Here is how it begins... as a code evangenlist every coder/developer wants to use the latest technologies available in best possible way & what more to ask for if they are available for 'free'.
Or 'are they'? Every-time we trespass on a piece of technological marvel we ask what's the cost and when we know it's free we pretty much 'forget' about it and start using it. Well, it's called a virtual free zone ... let's see how. Selling a product has various lure tactics to it, almost any product today would have some lure tactics involved - but ones which are fair and visible are the most beneficial as they give out the risks & advantages fairly.
As of today we use a lot of products off the cloud and start using them with the concept or notion of they being 'free' and available, so where do we lack they hit back at us at a later stage - may be in terms of capability limitation, data exposure, cost (yeah you heard it right - it was free wasn't it?) or performance(again you heard it - right - it was on the cloud wasn't it?). The first point where we presumably lack is asking the right questions the moment we start using the free product.
Suppose a well known service provider is giving a platform which allows using their software as a service but then it's free (well, it's not - it's just the matter of time when you found that out) - so day 1 you start using it, day 30 - you are quite satisfied with it, day 90 - you have already started putting that product out to a bigger base - started telling people about it, suddenly your product is peaking with everyone loving it and 'one fine day' - it stops functioning or doesn't function how it should (now what's the probability of that - well maybe 2%, but that probability was 2% when you started using it - it is now gone to be 60%). The only way to fix this is to buy a package which will get your product running again - but aah you were never told about - well, think on it - did you ask the right question?
Let's talk about another scenario - everything still running fine but you got bill on the product - and that is a figure which is 400% of what you capped your product budget on, you get amazed how that happened - when you get through to customer support - they tell you need to buy a support plan to give you information on why your bill shot up - so you think to yourself - seriously? - you got a free product based on face value of company selling it to you - well guess what - nothing comes on face value - you might have just learnt that - but then you have a more bitter experience since you are only trying to understand why your something which was capped at 20% max budget was charged at 400% (these days every big firm needs your credit card before you can start using their services), so now you have a headache of dealing with the customer support who will at best will assist you with information you already know - except that they will take away more time from that process making it lengithier which will probably negate your future plans to pursue with that product, and they are getting paid for it, so unless you want to buy additional support to get more information, which again you shouldn't be getting so fast until you agree to a term plan, so apparently now you lost more than what you could think of when starting with a 'free' product. And think for some time on the company which put those people in customer support, the manager you escalated the call to, the vp-product justifying the cause, they are all getting paid - to do what? justify 'nothing', no new information, same old stuff and who is paying for them - some poor company trying to get their product working, now that's not funny is it?
And this doesn't end here - if you start to quote your experience on a channel - there will be qualified people starting to negate your story and the company working at a probability to improve it would be 0.02%, that's the sorry part - as they earned their degree to do something constructive but now are just trying to re-sell a costly product back which was originally put on sale as free. So long story short - nothing comes free, ask the right questions, any company (whether it's the top 3 or bottom 3 worldwide) has a right to explain their package and product details - if they fail to do that, in sufficient detail, the idea to proceed is always an unknown risk as face value can be lost in a jiffy. The next thing you know - the company is sitting with your data which you already lost, which you need to pay to get back, and you cannot be sure that that firm might not be hacked tomorrow. It's very simple math but still it becomes very difficult most of the times.
Well, I would not quote the name but the experience quoted above is from one of the worlds best technology product firms and a startup trying to use their services - but that part doesn't surprise me at all but the part on the buying habits of the consumers really does and will not stop surprising me!
One of my resolutions on the new year is being a more informed consumer because I love technology and would always want to use the right & best suited for the job but would need to be fairly informed as well.
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