People Are Grateful These 25 Things Are Still Absolutely Free-Of-Charge

When I was younger a teacher asked us to write an essay about ‘the best things in life being free’. We each got to choose one thing and I chose music – because I couldn’t believe we got to listen to it absolutely free on the radio. Before all the streaming platforms stepped in and monetised it that is. However, if we pause to think about it, there are still many things that we get to enjoy for absolutely free. 

#1 Public Libraries.

Image source: scotch_man, Ricky Esquivel

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.

#2 Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Image source: Putasonder, Kimberly Farmer

#3 The natural history museum in London. Go there, it’s awesome.

Image source: LeTreacs

#4 YouTube. It’s crazy how much stuff is on there for free. Sure there’s ads but still.

Image source: suarezj9, Christian Wiediger

#5 Internet Archive.

Image source: BetterThanHorus

#6 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.

Image source: themustacheclubbitch, VLC media player

#7 Google Maps !

Image source: Lucky-Sunshine3, henry perks

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.

#8 The Libby app. I know it’s through your library but still, it’s such an amazing resource!

Image source: Otterlyridiculous_

#9 Khan Academy.

Image source: BruceTramp85, Mimi Thian

#10 Wikipedia!

Image source: Friendlygirlfriend04, Oberon Copeland

#11 The info in photos app that tells what kind of plant/animal/bug you take a pic of.

Image source: LazyEyedLion, Priscilla Du Preez

#12 The radio.

Image source: BruceTramp85

#13 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.

Image source: aburke626, Pixabay

#14 Blender 3d software.

Image source: Unlikely_Expert4675, Ivan Babydov

#15 Smithsonian museums – beautiful, educational, amazing and free .

Image source: OverRice2524, Miguel Cuenca

#16 Adblockers.

Image source: lol_camis, cottonbro studio

#17 Our neighborhood parks. Walking my dog around a beautiful park is the highlight of my day.

Image source: prunepicker, Helena Lopes

#18 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.

Image source: ChefGordonIII

#19 The St. Louis Zoo. Admission is free.

Image source: ApartPiglet4660, Julie Wolpers

#20 Hiking trails (most of them). Maintained, beautiful paths I can just wander whenever I want? Perfect.

Image source: 7937397, Amanda Klamrowski

#21 Linux.

Image source: sw2pnil, Lukas

#22 GPS. It costs millions of dollars a day to maintain.

Image source: BassLB

#23 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.

Image source: Adventurous-Fix-292, Dose Media

#24 Archive of our own. Got me through a lot of pain.

Image source: chillcatcryptid

#25 I have admiration for Craigslist and how Jim kept it free (with exception from job & apt ads).

Image source: shaka_sulu, Christin Hume