Nothing is Truly Free

Marvin Liao
2 min readAug 7, 2021

What do I mean? On Google or FB you can use their awesome services without paying for anything. But you actually are paying for it, just in a different way. You provide your data, they sell your data to advertisers and you get targeted with ads. Basically YOU are the product.

That highly discounted stay package to a Hawaiian hotel? Part of the deal is you have a mandatory meeting to listen to a real estate timeshare sales pitch. I might add that timeshare sales people are very good & the close rate is high, which is why these offers work. Great customer acquisition costs here.

Those meals or drinks your friend or neighbour pays for, unless you are a sociopath, you will feel obligated to them. I don’t know about you but as a fairly independent minded person, I hate owing anybody anything.

This is completely applicable to life as well. You want a healthy & fit body, you have to work out and eat healthy. You want a great marriage or family, you have to prioritize & put in the time and energy. If you want to get good at martial arts, surfing or anything, you have to put in the effort. You want to be a great investor or manager, you need time, experience & books and classes or at least that is what I did. There is always a price you have to pay. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying to you or is an inexperienced idiot (or a spoiled useless rich kid hidden away from the real world).

I truly believe that you can have and do almost anything you want. The question is are you willing to pay the price? Most people are not.

The sooner you understand this, the better your life will be. That means you can take ownership for where you are and what you have. If you don’t like it, you can fix it.

There is no free lunch in life or business.

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Marvin Liao

Ever curious: Tsundoku, Reader, Aspiring Shokunin, World traveller, Investor & Tech/Media exec interested in almost everything! www.marvinliao.com