Software companies are always trying to solve their client’s problems. In many cases I have dealt with clients with 12-15 pieces of software patched together or being used for different usecases.

The rise of freeware has really changed things- I have lost count how many times I have used tinywow.com , https://archive.ph/, https://excelformulabot.com/google-sheets.

Even for gated content there are tools to gain knowledge like https://archive.ph/. Knowledge in many cases is meant to be shared. In other cases it is meant to be paid for and I subscribe to some online magazines where I know I could get this information but choose to pay the small nominal fee to get this knowledge and it promotes generally better content. It is human nature when paying for something to look for value and ROI. When something is free it is easier to ignore shortcomings a product or solution may have, but sometimes the shortcomings can be large and the ROI is large enough to get specific software that fills your niche more effectively.

There have been countless times I have provided free value to clients by recommending tools. Tools like Google Docs and Open Office are continuing to gain ground on paid software solutions. I spoke on disruptive innovation a while ago now and freeware and the power of online advertisement is changing the value of what people are able to provide.

Regards,

Fahim Moledina