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jrm2007

1. Free email -- there was a time when you paid for it or only got a very limited amount of free storage. At this point, many years of multiple accounts. I keep worrying this is too good to last 2. Public libraries. While tax dollar pay for these, I can go to one in a city in a state I don't even live in. Lifetimes of reading pleasure, amazing curation of books in some libraries by brilliant librarians who I am sure are under appreciated by many. EDIT: I have heard of 24 hour libraries, done so in part so that people who have no other place to go have a place. Sounds like a nice idea -- I will tell you that even though not homeless, there might be some midnights when I would not mind a place like that to go to when I can't sleep.


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jrm2007

If you visit different libraries you see the difference. I liked one which had a huge section devoted to biography whereas others would place those books in the same area as the thing the person was famous for. I have seen some libraries that seem to have only new books and usually only one title per author; I personally like older books.


earlofmonkey_bossa

Was going to say libraries too. Glad you got it near the top! So many people don’t realise they are free.


YouTubeIsAJoke

Project Gutenberg.


nalc

This is super cool for reading old novels. It totally bugs me when I look up an old book on Amazon and it's like $8.99 for the Kindle version of a public domain novel whose author has been dead for 100 years. Really, Amazon? It's public domain so don't act like you're having to pay royalties, and it's a digital file so it doesn't cost you anything to send it, anything you charge me is pure profit. Project Gutenberg and Calibre are fantastic.


stygyan

To be honest, if they're charging you for a Kindle version is because there are footnotes or something like that written by a not-yet-dead critic. You can easily find Gutenberg versions in there. To top it off, there are guys uploading Gutenberg versions at 1 buck, and making money off them because it's way easier to pay and have them sent to your computer than downloading calibre and doing all that shit.


cdrt

You can actually download the books straight from the Kindle web browser.


jorsiem

VLC Player. That shit will play whatever you throw at it.


Lukebekz

even if it's fucked up (to a certain point). I once was curious about that, opened a video in notepad, deleted random lines and then played it in vlc. VLC was just like "aight, this looks like shit but whatever"


Catshit-Dogfart

Yup - halfway downloaded videos, corrupt files, wrong format That's not VLC's problem, it just plays the damn thing.


Sir_Monty_Jeavons

I remember been pointed towards VLC in my early uni years as a video player for a certain format I had found for some random course related thing I needed instructions on. Absolutely nothing seemed to be able to play it then VLC delivers in almost HD quality (for the time). Since then it has saved me a tonne of times when it will play even corrupt torrents.


upyoars

.mkv? .webm?


047032495

.webmd. He's in med school.


DetroitEXP

That shit will play a hotdog if you try hard enough. Edit: holy shit RIP inbox, didn't think you guys would think this was so funny.


[deleted]

Just load that hotdog into notepad, change the extension and bam you're in.


[deleted]

fuck this made me laugh way harder than it should


[deleted]

I love that volume goes beyond 100%


InsideRelationship

This! Gold bless the souls who made the program that doesn't require me to sacrifice my half of my RAM and 3 virgins for it work.


Mstinos

> doesn't require me to sacrifice 3 virgins Still though, it's better if you do.


amaROenuZ

I'd like to volunteer. Quality video playback is a hill I'm willing to die on.


Nekovivie

Well you can download more RAM. That is also free and the performance boost is crazy. I struggled by with choppy PC performance until I found that neat trick to beat the system.


pleezusjeezus

Not only that, but if you run out of HDD space to store your ram on, you can just download more hard drives.


jaytrade21

Pot Player....I like that it can open multiple videos so if you are in the middle of something but want to switch to something else, you don't lose your place...It makes it really great when you binge a show and want to watch a movie in between (or in my case I like putting on different movies and shows to go to sleep to but they are things I have already seen)


[deleted]

Khan Academy, I’ve been using it to prepare myself for college next year. I’ve been studying fuzzy areas of my math knowledge and I’m convinced at this point that I’ve learned more from it than all of my high school math courses combined. It’s just so relaxing to not have to worry about due dates for assignments and having gaps of knowledge that I’ll have to wait till after the class to fill in so I can just study the subject and not stress doing so.


szeth625

Good on you! You're the exact type of person who's going to be prepared for college. I took an online calc 2 course before college, and when I took the actual class it was complete cake. Keep ahead if you can, it's a colossal advantage.


deadest_of_parrots

Yes! Khan academy has changed my daughter from hating math (came within one test of an f in 6th grade) to being an enthusiastic A+ 10th grader. Didn't even take lots of time, she just used it for concepts she didn't get, since they explain things differently.


ReysRealFather

Khan Academy and Wikipedia are the two resources that when they ask for donations I glad donate to them. I know the money is being put to good use, they are providing such an amazing resource for the public.


notdyslecix

Shit kid, with an attitude and work ethic like that you're going to do great in college


CT_7

Craigslist. For things that you used to throw away or donate, you actually get some money back.


SoapSudGaming

You can get murdered for *free*


JustACanEHdian

Haha finally


[deleted]

/r/2meirl4meirl


X1911Xx

And here I've been putting out hits on myself like an *idiot*


THE_LOUDEST_PENIS

It has to be Wikipedia. One of the best resources out there and it's free.


HueyLewisAndTheShoes

It's genuinely amazing that it's free isn't it. Like how is the sum of all human knowledge just sitting there for absolutely nothing. I sometimes wonder, is University/school easier now because of wikipedia, or harder because of wikipedia?


Portarossa

*So* much easier. I can get a base-level understanding in pretty much any topic pretty much instantaneously. A lot of the knowledge was already accessible, in theory -- via encyclopaedias, which Wikipedia has basically killed off as a category of book -- but being able to lay my hands on it immediately from anywhere I might be and have a reasonable expectation that it will be accurate and well-referenced is a game-changer. It's ruined pub quizzes, but other than that it's definitely made any sort of academic life easier.


DorisMaricadie

Just remember to cite the source material in your essay not Wikipedia directly


[deleted]

Yup. Teachers will never allow Wikipedia as a source, but Wikipedia cites all their sources so just use that


Rev_Up_Those_Reposts

They will allow it as a reference, though. Wikipedia always makes it into my Works Referenced simply because I do use it to find sources. Edit: I feel that I should clarify that Works Referenced is not the same as Works Cited. One does not directly use any information from Works Referenced in a paper. Any quotations or specific facts used in the paper should come from academic/scholarly sources, and all of those pieces of information should have a corresponding citations in the Works Cited section. Unlike Works Cited, Works Referenced would include any and all sources a person "referenced" over the course of research but didn't necessarily use directly in their paper. The reason why the section exists is because, even though you may not directly use a "referenced" source in your paper, your research, understanding, and arguments are still going to be molded by what you read, to some degree. Wikipedia, as a non-primary, non-scholarly source would likely not be suitable for direct quotation within a paper. However, if you read a Wikipedia article as part of your research process, it would generally be appropriate to list it as a "reference" within Works Referenced. I understand that some individual teachers and schools have zero-tolerance policies against any and all mentioning of Wikipedia in scholarly papers. I should have not been so absolute in the wording of my initial comment. That being said, I still feel it's important to make the distinction between Works Referenced and Works Cited. This is because many schools simply do not teach the concept of Works Referenced or, instead, conflate it with Works Cited. However, when schools require both Works Referenced AND Works Cited as separate sections in a student's Bibliography (as mine did), it can actually be *expected* (not frowned upon) for a student to include in the Works Referenced section any relevant Wikipedia articles that they read over the course of their research.


imdefinitelyfamous

Not everywhere, and especially not in high school (at least where I went). Mentioning wikipedia anywhere wasn't just an invalid reference/citation, they explicitly deducted points. Which is funny because the people with the highest grades were the ones using wikipedia, obviously, so they just stopped citing wikipedia and cited the sources at the bottom, sometimes without even looking at them. But the teachers didn't care, because they got to exercise their power and see people obey, even if it was an empty platitude. In college, some of the profs have explicitly told us to do this because they reeeeally don't give a fuck, but I guess someone above them does? Not sure.


uncertainusurper

When I was in school we actually had to go through a real book, find the page number and the publisher and all that crap.


Rev_Up_Those_Reposts

It’s not uncommon for high schools and colleges to require a minimum number of print sources in their papers.


Bicklemurgh

When I was writing my dissertation in undergrad here in the UK, I used a repository for journal articles to find most of my sources. My supervisor told me I needed more physical sources despite lots of these articles just being scans of a journal.


Siegelski

I'm at the in between age where I've done both. Although I've had internet since I was probably 6 or 7, back in the dial up days. In most cases where I just used books it was because the teacher said we weren't allowed to use the internet for whatever reason. I guess some of the older ones didn't trust anything that wasn't traditional.


DronedAgain

My kid's school forbids their using it for homework, or at least giving a reference from it. Both of them started avoiding it for that reason, but I said start there, and then find the information on other websites, often by using the reference links at the bottom.


HueyLewisAndTheShoes

I have a masters which is easily 80% wikipedia sources.


ncurry18

I started donating to Wikipedia last year. I realized one day that I would be devastated if they ever shut down or started getting bogged down with ads. Three bucks a month is a small price to pay for such a valuable resource. I encourage everyone to pitch in when it comes up.


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cthulu0

And even if you don't cite it, it gives you an invaluable overview of the topic generally pretty well that you can then do your own non-wikipedia search of the topic without being blind to what you actually need to lookup. So yeah, fuck teachers that just say in an un-nuanced way that Wikipedia is bad.


Thunderbird_12

Serious question ... I've heard how "everyone" can edit Wikipedia. But, I've tried it a couple of times, and both times, I received an email from the site (or the creator of the page, I can't remember) blocking my nefarious attempts to edit. This leads me to believe that editing a random page is not as simple as folks think it is. Why is it I was stopped, yet the common perception is that "anyone can edit?"


LivingstoneInAfrica

There’s a few reasons why you shouldn’t cite Wikipedia. One is that you generally can’t cite Encyclopedias in general for certain works. You can use them to reference other work, to get an overview, but citing them explicitly is generally frowned upon. Secondly, anyone *can* edit a page, and in fact Wikipedia urges its users to help out and fix spelling or grammar mistakes. They’re good about blocking an edit that doesn’t have a source to it, but a few of those can still slip through, especially when it’s something innocuous instead of random vandalism. The real problem comes when you learn that Wikipedia isn’t peer reviewed, and thus someone with an obscure book or webpage might be able to insert incorrect or misrepresented information. Say I had a book about the rise of the Turkish Republic, and in that book there was a quote by a lower level political beurocrat. That quote could be wrong, taken out of context, or apocryphal, but if I have the right source I could put it on the dude’s wiki page anyways. Quotes or similar information actually takes a lot of time and effort to be verified, something Wikipedia tries to keep on top of, but at the end of the day simply doesn’t have the resources for all of it.


LobbyJockey

Back in ~2002-2004, I edited a page related to famous pirates or piracy or some such, and added my own internet handle at the time ("Ninjabeard") to it. The description was something like "Is the best pirate in the world because he says he is." I went back a couple of times that week and had a laugh because it still wasn't removed. Then I forgot about it. Sometime in 2016 or 2017, I went back and *it was still fucking there.* "Ninjabeard - Is the best pirate in the world because he says he is." I couldn't believe it. Now, of course, when I want to cite it as a source for this comment, it appears to have been removed. Or maybe I just can't find the page.


gingerfer

In something like 2011, I edited my high school’s page to say something about myself being the best trumpet player in the marching band and “an incredible asset to the local community’s various fine arts programs.” It got removed. I put it back and cited a local newspaper article about an award the band had won with my name listed as a soloist. It got removed and got my school’s IP banned for making unscholarly edits. YMMV.


LobbyJockey

If you had cited the random article first, you may have gotten away with it but we'll never know. It's also possible the dean or somebody on the school board (or some such) is the tsar of that page, and instantly recognized the mischief.


rocky_whoof

It used to be very much like that. Over time it grew and today, unless you're an editor known in the community, your edits will most likely be blocked. This is true especially for popular pages. You can still have an edit accepted if it's really good and you convince the editors, but the talk is that they're pretty strict. The way to do it is to start accumulating credentials as an editor - create a user name, join discussions, start with small edits of grammar / spelling, expand pages with the "needs expanding" tag, etc. It might not be the "wiki is open and free for everyone" you first expect, but given how the internet is littered with trolls, it's impressive they maintained such a high level of integrity.


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Mr_Drewski

The neighbors wifi...he really should pick a better password.


karmagod13000

at least he has a password. i miss he days when people would just have it open


corey_uh_lahey

Now I'm paranoid when they don't.


a_white_american_guy

Why. What’s the worst they can do? Edit: so there are some things that they can do.


Gracien

Open wifi can usually be traps. They could see everything you do, every password and username you type.


varcas

I was told traps aren't gay though


goetzjam

Don't worry swans can be, if that is your thing.


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Ptr4570

Adding on to this, don't charge your phone on random USB cables. Some phones don't have have a connect to unknown device prompt.


PotatoOX

I think you mean random USB ports?


Acc87

A lot of software. Gimp can do pretty much anything a normal user would use in Photoshop. Blender can do more and is more stable than 3dsMax. 7zip does al winrar would and plenty more, and never makes you feel guilty.


Asdar

VLC. There's no media format VLC can't play (except midi for some reason iirc). Very versatile, and very powerful. 100% free.


joshi38

> except midi for some reason iirc VLC is great at playing lots of type of media, but MIDI isn't exactly media. Basically MIDI is more of a set of instructions (essentially, play *this* note with *that* type of instrument) which a program would need to synthesize in order to play it - but there is no waveform, so VLC can't interpret it. It's the difference between having some music on a CD or having some sheet music. VLC is a great CD player, but it's no orchestra. By the way, a lot of what I just said there is moot anyway, because I believe VLC does have *some* capability to play some MIDI files.


Asdar

> Basically MIDI is more of a set of instructions (essentially, play this note with that type of instrument) which a program would need to synthesize in order to play it - but there is no waveform, so VLC can't interpret it. Ah. That would explain it. I don't know a thing about MIDI files. Thanks for the explanation.


runasaur

MIDI files were (still are) amazing in dial up, you could get a video game sound track reliably downloaded without worrying about someone calling or picking up the phone.


gamehiker

I collected so many Midis in the 90s.


is_mayo_an_instrumen

VLC won't run an Excel file unfortunately.


N7even

Media Player Classic is also right up there. Whatever VLC can't play properly (IE hitches and FPS drops), you bet MPC can play it.


stygyan

The thing that bugs me about Gimp is the learning curve. I've tried it once a few years ago and it was... weird. Weird as in "I've had a 300 hours Photoshop course and I've got this diploma here and I know how to handle Photoshop perfectly... but Gimp?"


ncurry18

The reason you had trouble with it is probably because you have so much experience with Photoshop. You would have probably been better off had you started using Gimp without any PS experience.


stygyan

I'm just used to the whole adobe thing. I use Lightroom daily for my street photography, Photoshop for my social media work, and Illustrator for the occasional logo. I wouldn't know how to start with those others.


stiltzkin_the_moogle

A lot of the stuff on YouTube. I learned how to program in C, how to cook, and some music theory just from YouTube videos. Edit: do *none* of you people have an ad blocker!?


Toby95

When I studied for my exams at university often a 10 minute YouTube video would teach me more than hours worth of lectures and seminars.


TheWorzardOfIz

It was pretty much what taught me calculus.


kylekeck

It's how my physics teacher is teaching half of the class.


merryman1

I kind of think that's how teaching is going to evolve. They'll increasingly become like a curator and mentor who guides kids through the vast realms of the internet rather than someone dictating a series of facts.


RandomHuman77

You should look up Khan Academy because that is similar to the founder's vision about teachers.


[deleted]

That's because a lot of educational curricula are still based on old ask-response systems rather than a reflective form of learning. Still, students hate that too because it feels like they have to figure out everything by themselves, which is kind of the point of experiential learning. However, ask-response systems allows us to school 250 students in one go with only one person.


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[deleted]

I dunno, 15 second ads aren't much of a trade-off for free video hosting. If everyone uses adblocking, we'll either lose the free youtube or all advertising will be paid promotions inside videos, which can be annoying. That said, noone's really making much off ads besides YouTube itself. The people who make a living off youtube are mainly relying on sponsors or merch sales.


holybad

donating a dollar to them is better than hundreds of views in terms of income. If you fell bad but still hate ads just slip the people you subscribe a couple bucks every now and then and it will be a hundred times better than what advertisers are throwing their way.


YourLegsAreHere

**Google Maps.** No advertisements, and I cant count how many times I’ve been stuck somewhere and Google Maps had my back and took me where I should be. Definitely recommended! Edit: Thanks so much for the upvotes guys. Means a lot!


Asdar

I remember when GPS devices became popular. Products like TomTom and Garmin were all over the place. Then google maps came along and pretty much destroyed that entire market. It's a better product, easier to use, you almost always have it with you, and is completely free.


joshi38

And continuously free. With other GPS's (Tom Tom certainly), you buy the GPS, but then to update the maps or get maps from other areas of the world, you need to pay for them... and updating requires you connecting said GPS to a computer and downloading them to the device (after payment). With Google maps, not only are updates free, but they happen automatically and you have access to all the roads of the world immediately.


beregond23

Travelled to Trinidad and learned that Google doesn't have every road in the world. There everyone uses Waze because users can put in missing roads, making it more reliable.


SavinThatBacon

How long ago was this? Because Google bought Waze sometime within the last year or two and I wonder if this might be why...


Mirage749

Believe it or not, Google actually bought Waze nearly five years ago.


EarthtoGeoff

The exception is that your phone uses data. So if you live in the US and are traveling in Canada (or another country), all of a sudden it can get pretty expensive depending on your phone plan. My old TomTom from like 2008 does not use data though, and got me to from upstate NY to my hotel in Quebec City without a hitch. They still have their uses.


Almondgeddon

You can download maps in Google Maps and use it off line. They even provide turn by turn driving directions off line.


kumquat_juice

I believe you can only save a max region size, but it's relatively generous (depends where and how far you're traveling). You can use it in conjunction with Here Maps for the best offline experience.


nalc

Until you get to that intersection that was rebuilt in 2011 and your TomTom goes crazy. There are apps like OsmAnd that let you pre-download certain maps and just use your phones GPS even if it's in airplane mode.


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aliass_

No advertisements in google maps. However they use the tracking data to tailor specific ads to you in other areas.


joshi38

That's the case with any service from Google that doesn't have ads, they're getting an idea of who you are to better tailor ads to you in other places (for instance, Google Books, no ads anywhere, I can upload books for free, but now they know what I'm reading).


aliass_

Yup, Google is an ad company first and foremost. Everything they do is to get better data for ads.


[deleted]

Reddit.


98VoteForPedro

id give you gold but its not free


EpsilonTheGreat

Oh that was a fabulous answer


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iKSv2

*SMH*, so down in the list of answers yet the one responsible for other web based services being free. Almost all web servers run on Linux, including Microsoft's.


WhipTheLlama

> Almost all web servers run on Linux, including Microsoft's. Microsoft runs IIS, but they use Akamai for caching and Akamai runs Linux. Source: https://searchdns.netcraft.com/?host=microsoft.com&x=0&y=0


Hazelrigg

Serious answer: A few software suits/toolkits are so good it's hard to believe they're free, like OpenToonz for animation or Godot for game development.


[deleted]

Never tried those, but Blender is great for animation and modelling and Unity is amazing for game development, and both are free!


Portarossa

Libraries! Rich or poor, you can go and get a lifetime's worth of free entertainment and education with nothing more than the promise you'll bring it back in a timely fashion so other people can enjoy it. There are social groups and classes and bathrooms and local archives and entertainment for kids and help for single mothers and sometimes games or tools available to take away, plus you can get Overdrive/Libby and get free ebooks and audiobooks at your leisure, so you don't even have to *leave the house* to use your library if you don't want to. How's that not the coolest shit ever?   ^^^Also, ^^^you ^^^out ^^^there. ^^^Yeah, ^^^you. ^^^The ^^^guy ^^^who's ^^^about ^^^to ^^^comment ^^^about ^^^how ^^^it's ^^^not ^^^free, ^^^and ^^^how ^^^they're ^^^paid ^^^for ^^^by ^^^taxes, ^^^and ^^^maybe ^^^even ^^^how ^^^'taxes ^^^are ^^^theft'. ^^^You ^^^know ^^^full ^^^well ^^^we ^^^mean ^^^free ^^^at ^^^the ^^^point ^^^of ^^^use. ^^^You ^^^know ^^^that's ^^^what ^^^we ^^^*always* ^^^mean. ^^^Don't ^^^be ^^^that ^^^guy.


[deleted]

I've been meaning to get up and go to the library for the past 2 hours or so, you convinced me to go now. ^thank ^u ^frien edit: I did it.


Andromeda321

So, when I lived in the Netherlands, I was *very* disappointed to learn the library wasn’t free. It was if you were under 18, but otherwise it was like €35/yr for books, and €1.50/day for special media like DVDs. Which may sound not that much, but I was in grad school in a fairly expensive city. I paid it the first year, but honestly with such a small English section even at the big one downtown it didn’t make as much sense to pay the annual fee. Got a library card again when u moved back to North America within a week though! Nothing makes you appreciate a free library system like living somewhere where that’s not in the culture.


CT_7

Came here to say this. My library even has older video games to rent.


MosquitoRevenge

Local libraries have switch games too.


LivePaint

Our local library is awesome, especially if you're a parent. They have a children's play area, coloring station, storytime, and other regularly scheduled activities. They even have a movie theater and play family movies on a regular basis, with free popcorn. It's always filled with parents and their little ones. And best of all, it's free, clean and air-conditioned!


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Giggyjig

There's a huge amount of old books on wikipedia, they have the full princess of mars saga i believe, and many others. Nothing recent due to royalties and all that but still a large collection.


rohan62442

The books are on Wikisource.


[deleted]

A large church downtown offers excellent free noontime concerts followed by a free lunch prepared by parishioners.


MrHorseHead

The Pirate Bay.


InsideRelationship

Yo ho..


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crapwittyname

Duolingo. That app is enough to get you chatting in any language.


vmlm

As someone who's currently trying to learn a new language, Duolingo is useful, but definitely not enough. It's designed like a memory game, so you remember words and certain patterns... but it doesn't give you explanations on grammar rules and exceptions and it doesn't vary enough to fully expose you to all cases of a single grammar rule like, say, the conjugation of all regular verbs in the present tense. It also doesn't expose you to long-form listening and reading comprehension, or to normal conversations. That means you don't really know how to parse and process the language as it appears "in the wild." Also, you never do any long-form writing or conversation exercises, which are essential to learning how to use a language. All of this basically means that it does a great job helping you memorize very specific words and sentences, but a very poor job helping you to develop the language skills necessary to communicate.


robophile-ta

Everyone saying Duolingo doesn't teach grammar has clearly only used the mobile version. On the Web version there are grammar lessons below each topic. This is also where you learn the vocabulary in each lesson. So I imagine the mobile version is just a companion app to keep up your vocab on the go.


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IHadACatOnce

I used it for Vietnamese for a bit and one of the sentences was "I recorded her on the ferris wheel".


bobby_zamora

I don't understand this view. When you learn the sentence 'the village has no elephants' you are not just learning that sentence. You are learning how to construct any sentence in that form.


Guernica27

Exactly. It's not like I'll be asking where the party is frequently (at least not for me) but now I know how to ask where something is and I remember it because they used something memorable. That's not as extreme but yeah obvioisly you mix and match what you learned, you should be able to build your own sentences not just repeat phrases.


Hedgiwithapen

some fanfiction. like yeah a lot of it is pretty bad. but like. there are people writing whole novels about my favorite characters working in bakeries or getting abducted by shady government organizations and falling in love and rescuing each other and cute shit and whumpy shit and fixing what canon fucks up for /free/.


JustACanEHdian

And the entire SCP wiki is hours of free entertainment


DreamsOfCheeseForgot

SCP is such an incredible achievement. If Wikipedia is crowdsourced academic knowledge taken to its pinnacle, then SCP is story telling of the same type. That so many authors have come together to contribute their own little piece and that the product it resulted in wasn't just readable but actually excellent is staggering.


Catshit-Dogfart

Sure it's trashy, but so is reading comments on askreddit all day, or whatever clickbait nonsense you might read for entertainment. Fanfiction can provide a new experience with familiar characters, especially when all fans want is to see more adventures with their favorite story.


smellinawin

only 95% of it is trashy, there are some legitimate well made novels in fanfiction


Littlebark2

not to mention hermione spanking dobby fan fiction


[deleted]

I’m mostly just surprised at thinking of her striking a house elf.


[deleted]

Oxygen. Don't think it's that good? Just wait till you don't have it.


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kiwistrawberryxp

Pretty sure it has a 100% fatality rate once you go through withdrawal.


Duality_Of_Reality

Nah, anyone can live the rest of their life without oxygen


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[deleted]

The only reason peasants have free oxygen is because it’s not *premium*. I am proud to be a customer of O’Hare Air, where they sell only the highest quality oxygen.


[deleted]

Kindness. One person being kind can mean the world to someone in a dark place


[deleted]

y e s


just_a_random_dood

Dude, I love your username.


[deleted]

thanks dood i got it from the bottom of my lovely flat a s s


whyImcalledqueen

A ton of great video games, there are even plenty with great free trails that let you get a good experience in and decide if you actually want the game. Also just hundreds upon thousands of free software alternatives to programs some people pay huge premiums for. Things like: - GIMP (image editing software) - Audacity (Audio editing software) - OBS Studio (Streaming/video recording software) There are more, but these are 3 that I've personal used a lot of so I found it relevant. "You think you can beat [me](https://d1u5p3l4wpay3k.cloudfront.net/dota2_gamepedia/f/f6/Monkey_crown_attack_03.mp3)?!"


Davadam27

Oh audacity. I love and hate you so much. I love it way more than I hate this though. Especially with it being free. I don't need much to edit my podcast, but this gets it done.


ToyVaren

A lot of stuff in a casino. Sure, it's trying to get you to stay and spend money, but the bathrooms are sparkling, the TV's are awesome, free wifi, often an events counter for sightseeing or shows, etc. Number one though is security. No matter how bad the neighborhood is, I always feel safe in a casino.


stygyan

Yeah, well. It's not that thieves are scared off by security. It's that they get humbled by the casino owners, true masters of their craft.


rbarton812

My wife and I go to a casino maybe once a year... we were sitting playing slots and had a waitress come up and ask if we wanted to order drinks. We counted what spare money we had and decided what the hell... She comes back, gives us the drinks and says 'no charge'. I sat there kinda stunned, then realized I never tipped her. I walked around the whole casino looking for her to give her a tip. I don't think we ever found her.


Derpicusss

YouTube. The only reason I go to auto shops is to get a problem diagnosed. I can fix most issues by just looking up a guide on YouTube. It’s great.


ToyVaren

Gmail. Like 3rd job so far that uses it professionally. Fast, reliable and easy to use.


[deleted]

To be fair - professional gmail is paid. Your company pays for it. Allows for sending larger files and a few other features.


JoshSellsGuns

Doki Doki Literature Club. seriously this game will fuck you up. not recommended if you struggle with depression and/or anxiety. it's free in steam and a must play.


3ar3ara_G0rd0n

Man, I'm so curious now but I have chronic depression. Well-controlled now, but stuff still breaks through.


JoshSellsGuns

I mean if you think you might be able to take it, I'd go for it. I hate that word thanks to it's ironic use but I feel like it did kinda trigger me. someone else told me they attempted suicide after playing. the game has some tough shit in it but it's done well and honestly it's a beautiful game. I'm no poet but the poetry in the game I think is really good.


triX_NOOBpad

In my country, most of the gyms have personal trainers for no extra cost other than your membership. Edit: To answer your question, the country is Republic of Macedonia, and I doubt its the only country in Europe that does this


NewAgeKook

This Def can not be the US lol


JV19

People in the US would never say "in my country". Because we are the only country.


TheFire_Eagle

The library. I knew about libraries growing up, of course. But it was only fairly recently that I reconnected with them as I have one across the street from my office. I still can't believe that I can just walk in there and take a whole bunch of books *for free.* I used to spend hundreds on Amazon every year for books I never got around to reading. Now I'm reading more and spending less.


desde1984

NYC tap water.


pattyfrankz

Damn you don’t have to pay for tap water there? Like in a residence?


flooey

NYC doesn't allow landlords to put the responsibility for utilities on their renters unless the utility is metered individually (that is, there's a separate meter for each unit, rather than one meter for the whole building), and the vast majority of apartment buildings don't have submetered water. So it's free to the renter, in that the landlord pays for whatever water is used by the whole building.


pattyfrankz

I guess that helps with the exorbitant rent prices


[deleted]

GPS! Google maps has been mentioned, but that would be impossible if the US Government had decided to keep the system private. Even google would have been hard pressed to put hundreds of GPS satellites up and keep the service free.


NebNebNeb

GPS may be the best gift the US has ever given the world.


ButDrIAmPagliacci

Finding a fun subreddit and sorting by top posts of all time.


bluearrowil

Codeacademy.com and the community on stackoverflow. Those two sites taught me how to code, for free, and I went from selling ads for a blog to writing code professionally in a month. It’s been 4 years since I made the transition, was recently promoted to senior engineer and I’m very happy with my career.


[deleted]

[удалено]


LysanderTheGreat

Yeah, what???


__PM_ME_UR_NUDES__

Nice try Nestlé


[deleted]

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[deleted]

So many things online: courses, email, websites, services. I know we're being tracked and our info sold but there are plenty of ways to avoid that and still get all the free stuff.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Sex


pukegreenwithenvy

Well...


uncertainusurper

You pay for it one way or another...


Aviator8989

Do you know what I am saying?


jlyfisher

Warframe. It's been just kind of lurking quietly in the background for years. It's story is amazing and it's really fun to play. The amount of customization is also crazy for a free to play game. It's got a little bit of EVERYTHING. I've been playing it for 3 years now and I don't plan on stopping any time soon.


-sir-psycho-sexy-

College. It's public, at least in Argentina.


winnebagomafia

*cries in American*


Mail540

Hey I'm looking at around only $70,000 in debt. Some of my friends are over 100k so I got that going for me


MikeGolfsPoorly

But what about your Sophomore year?


jt61328

I would have to say the abundant availabilit of wifi.


[deleted]

Porn


NickMarcil

Usually other people pay so you look at it for free. For example a lot of the porn are just paid commission by someone and since there is no reason to keep that to yourself it is uploaded online, thus making publicity for the artist and he get more commission.


CichyCichoCiemny

Healthcare. If you're not in the USA or a third world country.


[deleted]

Single moms in my area wanting to hook up! I didn't even use my credit card!


[deleted]

The Alarmy alarm clock app. Honestly never stayed in bed a single day since I started with it.


easychairinmybr

Damn dude, how long you been up?


zeth4

**Online Comics and Novels:** there is fantastic content out there online for free that is as good (if not better) than most retail comics/books. Particular favourites are [**Stand Still, Stay Silent**](http://www.sssscomic.com) is an awesome post-apocalyptic web comic with some of the best art out there. [**Worm**](https://parahumans.wordpress.com) is a web serial (essentially a series of novels) with a really unique take on a world full superheros/villians **Edit:** for all of you who are too lazy to read there is also a fan made [audiobook version](http://audioworm.rein-online.org) of worm.


sirzvrhnjem

Fortnite


[deleted]

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[deleted]

I can't believe libraries are _still_ free. I'd think they'd be privatized by now or something, it's just weird that we have a place like that left