There is amazon audible of websites offering to download free audiobooks, e-books about different topics, also free software. Somebody may wonder why are they offering that, is there any hidden reason to do it or they're simply generous and prefer to give away free stuff.

At first, one would think they are losing profits, why giving away for instance a free audio book if they can charge for it. However, lots of people query the various search engines with the word free, looking for free stuff, maybe since they don't want to spend money on the web, maybe using countries they are afraid to utilize their charge card online. Offering free content, is a great way to receive a large number of visitors in your web site. But, if they're looking for free things, it may seem its useless to have them as a visitor. That's not right ! Maybe they won't buy now, but should they sign-up to the site or a newsletter in the site, the owner of the website will have the possibility to sell him things later on, perhaps offering some great opportunities for instance a discounted items only for people in that list.

On the other hand, people to the site may click in some of the ads or banners the web site has, perhaps also offering to download free audio books, and that could also make the web site owner earn money.

From the customers point of view, what ought to be done ? Maybe say: "They are cheating me, I won't download nothing, they only want me to buy" That would be useless, it would be a better idea to visit the site that offers free audio books, and check should they like any of the free titles offered. Also if the web site has ads, visit other sites which may also offer to download free audio books.