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‘Free’ is a somewhat emotive word on the internet – we all seek the ‘free’ information that will give us the key to success, we look for the ‘free’ tools that make our job easier, we mutter when we discover that something that purports to be ‘free’ actually ends up costing us – even if only an email address for a list that we rapidly unsubscribe from. One thing I think we often forget is that ‘free’ always costs somebody, somewhere, something – and sometimes we are perhaps unwittingly guilty of taking advantage. I have to say I am currently suffering from a pang of guilt about something I should have done a long time ago – and I owe both an apology and a debt of gratitude to a supportive friend.
There are many sites on the internet that offer support and tools for us to use and merely ask, very politely, in very small letters, for a donation to help support the work they are doing – freely. How many of us actually do something about it – we download the free software, we love the tools, we use them daily but I will bet my bottom dollar that most of us go blithely on forgetting that time, effort and money go into providing us with those ‘free’ tools. We all have good intentions of chipping in when ‘I make some money’ – but do we… Or maybe we think to ourselves that we can’t give much so better wait until we can, rather than accepting that small amounts add up and every little helps. There is always the unspoken thought in the back of our minds that ‘someone’ else’ will be providing the necessary support – but we all know that ‘someone else’ generally doesn’t exist!
I use Squidoo, my passion for it is well documented. To help me I use SquidUtils – a site full of absolutely fabulous tools for Lensmasters which makes life so much easier. SquidUtils is provided, free of charge, by The Fluffanutta, a Lensmaster and programming genius for whom I have great admiration. He develops the tools and then makes them available to us all with a generosity of spirit that is outstanding. Many, many Lensmasters could not manage their businesses without these tools. There is a tiny little box in the sidebar that very politely and discreetly asks for donations and I suspect that many users, like me, keep meaning to do something but never get round to it. Anyway – somebody else will always be doing something, won’t they….
If we don’t support these sites, and the generous souls who provide them we will lose so much more than the tools, we lose something of our own generosity of spirit in that we take without giving, and that diminishes us as human beings. I had allowed myself to become diminished in that way and I am saddened by my failure to support my friend’s generosity, and to thank him. I will not allow that to happen again, it is too high a price . I have donated – but more important still I want to take this opportunity to thank The Fluffanutta for his kindness and generosity in sharing his skills so freely with us all.
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