<…> There was once a time when a totally legit faucet gives you free 50
BTC.
And some people soon learnt how to exploit them fairly quickly, forcing developers to adapt and throw-in counter measures to block their loopholes:
Who's the Spanish jerk draining the Faucet? (this thread is particularly amusing to me).
And that's how the story of the 50
BTC falling all the way down to 0.5
BTC.
Now I found out it wasn't just all about the price exponentially rising. It was more of how a
tonto/a de España found a way to bite the hand that fed him/her. Freely!
And made even more amusing due to Satoshi responding to it:
4. Make the standard amount given away 0.5 Bitcoins (Bitcoins have gone up 10 times in value since I started the Faucet).
Definitely time to lower it.
The use of the term "free" is often really more of a "low cost of opportunity", generally involving someone’s personal time, as opposed to making a purchase. Faucets I figure fall under this conception, although with less and less ROT (Return on Time) as time goes by.
It has to be made much much lesser to the point of becoming worthless probably to discourage abusers.
As to the term "free," delving into its
real meaning deeper would drag the entire discussion into a metaphysical one. And there seems to be no point for it. After all, there is no such thing as nothing to begin with.