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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Yes but they're still having conversations with machines sitting on the public internet, whos services are currently given away.
If the price is free, you are the product... for the entire time the internet has existed. It should be common sense that it is happening and in no way what so ever a surprise to anyone.
This is anti-Free Software propaganda. Some things really are free without catches, and we shouldn't impugn them just because other things are fraudulent.
FOSS in most cases is very different than merely using a canned product someone else is "selling".
Precisely within machine learning, which is this topic, it's the difference between running models locally and just using chatgpt/etc. There is a VERY big difference and a VERY different price for entry.
The catchphrase doesn't mean you should be wary of free software, it means you should be wary of free services.
If a service costs you no money to use, and yet costs the operator money to provide, you should think carefully about how the operator is financing it - because it may be via capture and sale of your data, or other undesirable means.
Amazing and benevolent free software does exist (and lots of it!) but there's a reason FOSS and self-hosted are often said in the same breath. Giving away software for free costs nothing (aside from the generosity of the developer's time) but hosting software as a service costs money, and that's why if a service is free you should exercise suspicion.
Also - a shoutout to our Lemmy Admins as proof that this isn't always true, and for hosting the fediverse for free out of their own pockets, simply because it's a cause they believe in.