Opinion: If your work isn't free, don't expect everyone else's to be either

I work with a number of clients in a variety of industries. I’m constantly amazed by the larger companies that simply do everything they can to avoid paying for things that they should be paying for.

I’ll give you two simple examples.

Many companies use TeamViewer. It’s easy to use and it works well for what it’s intended for. However I’d say that over 90% of the clients are using it as the free personal edition that says all over it for non-commercial use. I don’t get why companies that are turning over tens of millions of dollars, or who are managing billions of dollars of other people’s funds struggle to pay the correct licensing for basic utilities that they depend upon.

In the online course creators’ groups that I’m part of, people are highly protective of their own intellectual property and endlessly concerned about people pirating courses. Yet when the same people need some graphical work, or they need some B-roll video, or they need a video recording and editing tool, the first thing they always expect is to find a free tool.

It’s simple: if you want these types of tools to exist, please be prepared to pay for them.

2020-04-14