By Paul Gowan (www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/free-2/5922/)

Free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it: nothing.  But is that true?

If I recommend a technique to help your high-end system sound better and it works for you, what was that worth?  What you paid for that advice – which was nothing?

I struggle with the idea that we get what we pay for.  In fact, I think that’s simply wrongheaded.

We struggle with the notion that a power amplifier that costs $1,000 could ever sound as good as one that costs $10,000 – yet it’s easily possible because both are expensive enough to be able to sound great.

iTunes is a free music management programme and it’s far better than many similar programmes you pay for.  No, it’s not high-end and was never meant to be, but it does illustrate my point.

Our up and coming high-end version of iTunes, eLyric, is high-end  and also free – yet some people struggle with using it for precisely that reason: it’s free so how good could it be?

So what’s the value of something when it’s free?  I don’t know, maybe we should Google the answer.