Free Services?

Ok, I am not sure If I want to do this -- yet, but my question is for all those sites that offer free services like Host, forum hosting, etc. Is it worth it for the webmaster to offer free hosting when it costs them money for a reseller server and such. I have seen alot of those free hosting sites require forum posting for hosting, if they dont, they force ads. I can see how the forced ads might bring revenue, but I dont see a future in "post to host" programs.

That is propably the way to pay for their growth.

I mean that if the free hosting company wants to make a succesfull forum, then they have to pay a lot of money in advertisment.

In this model they just pay for the hosting (which in many cases is not much) and they have a lot of loyal users to the forum (so they don't have to worry about it)

This is just another way to spend your advertising money... You eighter spend cash on ads or spend cash on goods/services to give away. When giving goods/services away the 'word of mouth' advertisement will probably go a little faster...

ok i see what you guys are saying. Thanks for the replies.