I'd say it depends on the item and the differences between the free and paid version. You can argue about the semantics but DAZ essentially gave away a 'lite' version of their figures for quite a while. You had to buy the morphs to get the full functionality. I doubt that many peoiple were content without the full package. There've been a couple of figures that had free 'limited' versions that had perhaps very few or no morphs, and a very simple texture - Sraci is one I recall. I can't say how well that worked for them.

You'd really have to look at the market, e.g. I agree that for a spaceship it might not pay. You have to figure how many people would do exterior renders vs. how many would do interiors and want all the bells and whistles - same thing for a car. With human figures, it's may be easier, most people probably want the morphs and nice textures. Of course, those who would be happy with the exterior wouldn't necessarlly buy the full version anyway, so the loss might not be that bad. If they have the lite version and one day decide they want a detailed model then there's a greater chance they'll go with your product.

I'm not sure how well it works for software in general either for that matter. I'm sure it does in some cases. OTOH, I have lite versions of things like Revo Uninstaller, Atlantis word processor, NoteTab text editor etc. The free versions do all that I need, and I bet that's the case for a lot of others - how many people buy the deluxe anti-virus package? Where a lot of the software vendors make money is with commercial use sales and features that are more necessary for businesses.

Tha dancing flower is actually a pretty good item for a lite version. If I liked the free one, I'd probably want the one with all the moves.  

 

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