The Best Things in Life are Free

Or are they?

Someone brought this topic up on a forum and it got me thinking.

Is there actually anything in this world that is free?

We , as a society, are continually bombarded with promotions offering free goods. Buy one get one free, 3 for the price of 2, free car insurance, interest free credit card offers, free iPods even.

But are any of these things actually free?

Take the Free iPod idea for example, while it appears free and while there will be many testimonies that declare its success and highlight their receival of a free ipod as proof, there is a distinct non-freeness (is that a word, nah? who cares!) about it. There's a number of offers that need to be signed up to first and a large number of friends need to be referred before the top of the pile gets their free Pod. Basically the whole premise is like the pyramid schemes of old but with online offers replacing the cash investments and the payoffs being iPods instead of exorbitant cash sums.

The BOGOF offers aren't free either as often in the run up to such an offer, the price willahve been inflated to give the appearance of a decent saving when in fact ur paying the same. Don't believe me? Tune into Watchdog on a regular basis and you'll see what I mean.

as someone on the above thread mentioned, Friends are free. And there was me thinking they were charging £115 forthe complete run, Series 1-10! Seriously though, while friends seem free, I challenge you to find someone who will be your friend with no cost to youwhatsoever. I don't mean monetary cost here, but perhaps emotional cost or a time cost. Most folk are more than willingg to pay these to have good friends but you wont find many people who will be friends with them unless you invest some of your time and effort ingrowing that friendship first.

So it leaves the question, where those lessons you learned as a five year old really true?

Is there nothing in life for free?

P.S. Here's a truly free iPod for you, Enjoy (taken from here)