A lot of people out there offer software and tools for free, and for a price. Quite often the price starts at around 100$ for a piece of software. At the same time with a bit of looking you can find something that does the same, and is free. Anyhow what I'm really wondering is if its worth it to put something online for free. Free More Users More Traffic Better Linkability Paid More Money More money to spend on marketing, therefore more end users Pays for itself (bandwidth server etc.)
The comparison is right, but the person who want to use the service it depends on him that why he want this service for, if he want something professional then he have to pay for that and if want to use that service for the fun sake or to fullfill his hobby he will go for free service as he is not looking to earn anything from it so he wont like to pay for it.
Maybe, however quite often you have free and paid systems which are of the same quality. The only difference is pyschological. The paid has got to be better because its.. more expensive. I mean if it wasn't better why would it be paid while the other one is free? For example an old associate of mine manages a company here in shanghai selling luxury sofas. These were selling for around 10k USD a piece. However sales werent that great. Eventually he came up with an idea, he raised the price from 10,000 USD to 12,500 USD. Now he had the most expensive sofas in the city. Now remember he didn't change the product at all just the price. Because of the price jump he began to sell more.
My advice would be to make a few softwares and put some (like 25% of the best ones) as paid, and the rest can be free. IT