The Mentality of Entitlement to “Free”

A recent post just over a week ago by Mike Arrington at TechCrunch entitled “What The Hell Happened To The Free Version Of Google Apps?” caught my attention, and not because I too use Google Apps’ free edition myself for several side projects. Rather it was because of the overriding tone in the article, as evidenced right from the word go with that strongly worded headline, that we were all somehow ENTITLED to (unlimited forever?) access to this free edition – that it couldn’t ever be taken away without some violation of our rights having occurred. That mindset I find interesting. Perhaps a little troubling even.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the Google Apps Standard Edition (officially name for the free version), as it’s a great service (as in good quality, very useful, very well put together) and indeed great that it’s offered for free. But I don’t take that it’s free NOW for granted. I would be seriously bummed if Google wanted to start charging me to use it for existing accounts, and bummed also but to a lesser extent if the pay model was extended only for any new accounts. So I am all for Arrington and others calling for Google’s head if they take away the free version.

Oh in case you didn’t already know it, Google didn’t actually take away the free version – they just moved the link to it to somewhere else to make it a little less obvious. Crisis averted.