Why I Hate Free

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Video Transcript:

Free! Free! I hate stuff for free! I can't believe I'm saying this but I don't like free and it's all because of something that happened to me a while back. Two years ago, I went a little bit crazy and decided to get two apartments: one in Israel and one in Palestine. 

The idea was simple: Let me give this apartment for free for anyone to sleep there because I wanted people to visit and see both countries at war— Israel and Palestine. You just email me what day you want to stay there and my team will make it happen. 

Thousands of people loved that idea and they emailed me in the hundreds. Some even booked the apartment months in advance because after all, it's a free night stay. 

This was working. We were fully booked until something happened. People started to cancel. At the last minute, people's plans have changed and they decided they don't want to stay at the apartment anymore. 100% of the bookings were free and 50% of them were cancelled. This is the cost of free!

Because when we get things free of charge, we don't value them. So, we easily give up on them. This isn't just unique to my apartment. This is everywhere around us. If we get clothes for free— we throw them away. Gifts for free— we don't use them. Education for free— we don't value it. 

I know I don't value my free Harvard education and on the other hand, we value the things we pay for. That's why people take care of their $3,000 Louis Vuitton bag not because it's a bag but because it costs $3,000. 

This is also how entire countries are built. Some governments understood this problem so, they make citizens pay 5% for their education or 5% for their health care. Not for the money, it's just to make people and citizens value the thing they're getting from the government because 100% free can be dangerous.

This is just the story of two apartments that I tried in Israel and Palestine, but the lesson from them is much, much bigger. There is no such thing as a free lunch because even if the lunch is free, we may not even eat it.




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