the classic success story about giving product away is MS-DOS.

In the early days of the PC, MS-DOS was clearly inferior to most of the other options, notably Apple's OS. So they made arrangements with PC manufacturers and practically gave it away to get it into the hands and lives of almost everybody who had a PC.

Once people got used to it, they didn't want to endure another learning curve, and it became the de-facto standard OS. And that's when they started charging for updates. We now know how rich that tactic made Bill Gates.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ey71h8ep047758h/AAC12jNM0Hz9Q8zsh5iDeqNHa?dl=0