There’s an old model in business called “razors and blades.” Incorrectly attributed to King Camp Gillette, the inventor of the safety razor, perhaps better attributed to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, the model is based around making one thing easily accessible so that consumers will need another. If you give razors away for free, then customers are eventually going to need some more blades. Standard Oil would give out free kerosene lamps, knowing that they’d make their money back on the oil needed to light them.
