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sigh some major cases of commerce-phobia around here.

I wouldn't say that exactly... I mean, when someone asks about finding this or that item or prop, the barrage of replies usually don't include freebies, but a horde of merchies and friends of merchies pointing to for-sale items. More like commerciophilia at times... 

Now, this is not to say that I agree or disagree with what the PTB are trying to do. I just wish it were a little less complex.

Oh, I hear ya. I can give you my reasons, and opinion about it.
First I wanna preface this that when i search for desired content I use one of the search engines, whatever3d.com that lists freebies and commetcial pieces.

I think commercial pieces come to the front for several reasons:

One, they're often more visible and better organized.
Two, they are very often of better quality then freebies. (Not all of them, but there's a significant percentage) There is a fair amount of crappy product even in commercial pieces. In freebies, it's magnified.
Three, trying to find, unzip, clean up directories and actually manage freebies - I personally find overly time consuming and nightmareish. By the time I get done finding, unzipping and making sure any freebies actualy work, most of my free time for the task is gone.  Merchant packs are usually more organized and concisely packed.

Personally, I don't use a whole lot of freebies, mostly for the above reasons, so when someone asks about a piece, I'm more likely to be familiar with a commercial product then with freestuff, and offer my answers accordingly.

Now, if Stonemason and few other of my favorite vendors offered their stuff as freebies, I'd be a lot more excited about more freebies. Much like I get super excited about Apollo, and Apollo is FREE! I'm excited about Apollo because it's a great quality product/piece... whatever you wanna call it. Not because he's free or not free.

As a hobby aspect of 3D, it's much like any other hobby I ever had... most of the things you need for the hobby, you end up buying them. Sports, crafts, sewing, dioramas, jewelry, scrapbooking, beads, whatever the hobby is, there's always something for it that you have to buy to engage in it. And sometimes you get to share things with other people, and don't have to buy stuff. A nice bonus.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
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