“What Free Thing Is So Good You Can’t Believe It’s Actually Available For Free? (30 Answers)
Interview
Some of life's best things are free, just like a borrowed book from the library or a digital map that offers the shortest route to any part of the world. However, we tend to pay little attention to them, often taking them for granted.
To remind us of them, people in this online thread were listing free-of-charge items they couldn’t believe were available for free. Scroll down to find the most popular ones that are guaranteed to save you some bucks in the future!
While you're noting them down, don't forget to check out a conversation with the person who started this discussion in the first place.
This post may include affiliate links.
Public Libraries. They do so much good for their communities, providing safe places to work, learn and read and use the internet. Librarians work so incredibly hard to make their local branches welcoming and fun places to explore and people take them for granted. I know they aren't "free" because we pay for them with taxes, but their budgets are usually incredibly small and they do their best. Most have dvds/blue-rays and video games and audio books as well if you didn't know. 10/10 would recommend.
Until certain people of a certain political persuasion come along and threaten the library to remove books before they burn them. WTF America?
Bored Panda reached out to redditor who began this discussion, u/EyesKyoob, to learn more about what motivated them to ask such a question online.
They told us, "Like most people, I enjoy free things, and figured the best way to see what free services we should be taking advantage of was to ask the people of Reddit."
For them, the VetTix app has been the most rewarding free resource they have come across so far. "As a veteran, the VetTix app has been the best for me. I have gotten some great free tickets for all kinds of events through them," they said. "It has provided me and the family with many free tickets to baseball, monster truck shows, and football games, so that’s absolutely better than having paid for those tickets."
Redditor is unsure whether the best things in life are truly free, but is glad people shared so many awesome things that cost nothing. "I don’t know that to be true, but there are a lot of services on the Reddit post that I never realized were great free services like parks, libraries, museums, and software we take for granted."
VLC player for Pc and mobile. The best encoder and decoder ever. It can literally play every audio and video media and is totally free! Wild. The founder refused 55 million dollars for it to keep it free.
VLC has the basic simplicity of a screwdriver from the user's end but it is a refined beast under the hood. It just works.
Wikipedia!
One of the best things on the web and it's still ad free. Let's keep it that way.
The main reason why some businesses or organizations offer free services or products is an opportunity to test them. Sometimes, entering a certain market with a paid commodity can be hectic, and offering a free-of-charge item allows companies to test the waters without additional pressure.
Besides, when people are downloading an eBook or software program at no cost, their expectations are much lower than those of a paid product. Therefore, users will be more glad to test it out and offer their feedback. This information can later be used to create other commodities with a better understanding of the client's needs.
Smithsonian museums - beautiful, educational, amazing and free .
Some of the best London museums are also free. The Science Museum and the Natural History museum are my favourites ❤️
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
Google Maps !
Do you realize we had to pay for maps before ? And it didn't even indicate the shortest path, neither for cars nor for bikes or walks ? And it was only maps of area and not the entire freaking world ? What a great time to get lost.
I think its great its free, but, you should always remember that "free" and google means they are collecting your data. Your travel habits = your data.
It’s also a great marketing strategy that gets businesses’s names out there. Rarely do people refuse free things, which allows them to get familiar with the company on their own. If the product is good, they’ll likely come back for more and might even buy into the brand.
According to Petra Mayer & Associates Consulting, “Online courses and programs are one of the best resources you can offer, and you can create them in any area you like.”
Hiking trails (most of them). Maintained, beautiful paths I can just wander whenever I want? Perfect.
The info in photos app that tells what kind of plant/animal/bug you take a pic of.
Adblockers.
Unless the website you're browsing becomes unusable unless you disable your adblocker. Looking at you, BP.
Many companies have already done this, allowing people to access a myriad of free online resources. For example, Project Gutenberg, which was a massive lifesaver during my university days, has more than 50,000 free e-books, including many classics. If you ask me, there’s no better deal out there than free education that helps us grow and improve.
Our neighborhood parks. Walking my dog around a beautiful park is the highlight of my day.
The natural history museum in London.
Go there, it’s awesome.
Google Arts & Culture also allows people to explore over 2500 museums and galleries around the world without having to leave their homes and take out their wallets. If you've always wanted to visit Tate Britain, MoMA, or the Rijksmuseum, now’s your chance. They include online exhibits and a street view that lets enthusiasts freely roam the halls of the museums.
GPS. It costs millions of dollars a day to maintain.
The original US GPS system was created to enable quicker and more precise targeting of submarine launched ballistic missiles (you need to know the exact launch position). Maintaining it was and is a military necessity - and it's turned out to be pretty useful for everyone else, too.
The radio.
Depends on the country, we in Germany have to pay a monthly fee for national radio stations - if we listen to them or not
Hmm YouTube and online education, you can get so much knowledge that would have been damn near impossible throughout history.
Honorable mentions: Google maps (said before), ChatGPT, libraries.
The last freebie we’re mentioning today is the free section of Craigslist, where generous people list items they are willing to part with without any pay (that is, if you’re willing to pick them up). It works for just about any city in America. In busy New York, for example, it’s not uncommon to see hundreds of offers every day. Give it a try, and who knows, you might hit a jackpot like these people did!
YouTube. It’s crazy how much stuff is on there for free. Sure there’s ads but still.
The internet! We don’t always think of it as free because you have to pay to _connect_ to the internet but you don’t have to pay to access it. It’s just there, for everyone.
We can all thank Al Gore for this one. He pushed hard to fund the infrastructure necessary to make it happen. Then he screwed it all up in one speech when he said he "invented the internet". He didn't "invent" it but he made it happen here in the USA. Back when he was just a congressman, he got funding for the development and expansion of what we call the internet. We owe him that.
WAZE. For those that don’t know it’s a GPS app that has a community of people that allows you to mark the map for hazards (99% cops). It’s saved me many tickets and has gotten increasingly popular over the years and gets more and more reliabl.
The Libby app. I know it’s through your library but still, it’s such an amazing resource!
The St. Louis Zoo. Admission is free.
The excellent St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) also has free admission and only the special exhibitions are at a cost.
Internet Archive.
Also, Annas-archive.org get ALL of my college textbooks through them 100% free
Canva is a pretty fantastic design program for basic stuff. They have a paid version with more features but even the free version is pretty robust.
I am a professional designer and use it sometimes over other “deeper” design programs for its simple UI.
Canva is for designer like SketchUp for 3D modeling. It cannot do everything, but it is simple, quick and for a lot of things, it works just fine enough. (And if you need more, export it and proceed in something stronger).
Blender 3d software.
Short of an OS, it must be the most complex and feature rich piece of software you can get for free.
I have adrmiration for Craigslist and how Jim kept it free (with exception from job & apt ads).
Poison control.
I guess this is about call centers in case of accidental poisoning. You can reach medics who are experts in this fields at any time of the day. In France, it's free.
DaVinci Resolve - video editing software.
It is really good. I used the free version for 3 years until I decided to get the paid version... and never looked back.
Winzip.
Nobody mentioned Duolingo. Free version for many languages and even those not even covered by paid apps. I've been using the app to learn Dutch and Esperanto the last few years and can read Dutch books easily now.
I was surprised not to see it listed. I’ve learned 3 languages over 5 years on Duolingo.
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Kind of morbid, but Find A Grave is awesome. It helps with a lot of basic genealogy, and has great browsing categories for famous and interesting graves. You can even join and contribute by taking photos and submitting information for new graves and incomplete entries.
Agreed, I was able to find my paternal grandmother's grave with it. For some reason she was separated from the rest of the family when she was buried, but I found her and got a picture of her headstone. 👍
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To the commenter(s) who keep complaining that “it’s not free if you pay for it with taxes”, you’re using the wrong sense of the word “free”. Nothing is truly “free” as in no cost at all to anyone. The sense of “free” being used here is referring to things you don’t pay a fee to use at the time of acquisition or usage. Taxes pay for the existence of these services, without fees for use.
Nobody mentioned Duolingo. Free version for many languages and even those not even covered by paid apps. I've been using the app to learn Dutch and Esperanto the last few years and can read Dutch books easily now.
I was surprised not to see it listed. I’ve learned 3 languages over 5 years on Duolingo.
Load More Replies... Kind of morbid, but Find A Grave is awesome. It helps with a lot of basic genealogy, and has great browsing categories for famous and interesting graves. You can even join and contribute by taking photos and submitting information for new graves and incomplete entries.
Agreed, I was able to find my paternal grandmother's grave with it. For some reason she was separated from the rest of the family when she was buried, but I found her and got a picture of her headstone. 👍
Load More Replies... To the commenter(s) who keep complaining that “it’s not free if you pay for it with taxes”, you’re using the wrong sense of the word “free”. Nothing is truly “free” as in no cost at all to anyone. The sense of “free” being used here is referring to things you don’t pay a fee to use at the time of acquisition or usage. Taxes pay for the existence of these services, without fees for use.
