I was thinking about something last night while going through some of my game posting archives.

The issue isn't so much about free vs. non-free. It's really an issue of time vs. no time.

Much of the arguments on both sides boil down to very different perspectives on the value of time.

When you're a kid (i.e. a teen) you have all the time in the world. You may not think you do when you're a teen but you really do. I remember even in college thinking I was "swamped" but I did, afterall, write a commercial software product that went on to bring in millions of dollars between working 3 other jobs and taking Electrical Engineering classes full time. In essence, I had time.

Now, being "old" (just turned 30), time is more important to me than money.

To use an unrelated example:
Most strategy games come with "packs" that contain extra maps and sell for $20. These packs get flamed by some people like crazy because one can find plenty of good maps for free if they dig for them.

But that is exactly the point. Someone like me is not willing to "dig". If I can get all the maps I might want for a favorite game for just $20 instantly, then I'm set.

Convenience, short for time savings, outstrips the value of saving some nominal cost.

That's where the paid skin debates come in. There are lots of excellent free skins out there. There are some excellent free suites out there as well. But for someone who's really busy and wants to have a complete, unified look, $10 is nothing and to get a complete unified suite of 20 different skins is an incredible bargain.

This extends to software as well. Sure, you can hunt for a good freeware alternative but when I need something done, I'm going ot go with whatever I find first that works well. We paid $500 for Webtrends even though there are plenty of free log analysers out there. We just didn't feel like fooling with them. Same for our mail server. We paid for one even though there are lots of free ones. This is one reason why Linux has failed as a desktop. Because the bulk of users out there aren't teens with massive time on their hands. THey just want to sit down and get the thing to work with minimum effort and time.

So I think much of the debates on "Freeware" vs "payware" is really a debate of which you value - time or money. For most adults, $10 or $20 is so nominal that it is effectively free AS LONG AS IT'S CONVENIENT TO PAY.

But when you're a teen, it's hard to imagine that change. And hence, they think that the difference is based on principle rather than lack of time.