Free is fine, there is nothing wrong with the idea or concept of free.  A certain, important aspect of this community is built on free -- free content, free tutorials, free advice, all done out of the love of sharing/giving and so on.

There are a lot of good applications that are free.  Audacity, CamStudio (Recorder), The Gimp, Blender, etc.  I'm trying to think of the ones I use or have used.  But even with those, they don't always meet everyone's needs, wants or desires, so freely available is not the end all of it.  I'm fairly sure, too, that those have made an impact into the various commercial markets.  However, Photoshop still has its share and followers.  Cinema 4D, Lghtwave and so forth too.  I can say from dabbling in the modding community that a lot of folks are using Gimp and Blender but at least as many are using Photoshop and Max.

I see parallels here versus the mod community, in a lot of different ways, that I won't mention depthfully as to derail this thread (like too much made for Body "X", which could be V4 and not enough stuff make for Body "Y", which could be Roxie or whomever - it is really uncanny).

Software isn't always bound by a financial situation.  It can be but sometimes folks just like this or that better, regardless.

Content and so forth, it's no good to have a bunch of CDs/DVDs with nothing to play them in, so you need the unit too.  Every once in a while you get a new unit because the old one is out of date or this new one has some nice, new features.  Maybe you're comfortable using the old one for a while longer, maybe not.  Maybe you have to buy a few less CDs to afford the new unit.  Should the unit come with its own movies?  Maybe a console is a better analogy here, LOL...  Anyways, if it comes with something you can put in it, it's never going to be to everyone's liking.  If a CD player (just pretend here) came with a Slim Whitman CD, I'm very likely to never play it.  Particularly if my Martian friends came over... :P

Sorry a bit sleep deprived, not 100% sure what I'm saying. :D

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