TANSTAAFL

Written abbreviation of "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch," meaning nothing is ever really given away for free, so be wary of hidden charges, motives, or agendas. Of course, once you're signed up to the free program, you have to pay for all sorts of extra services to make it even worth using. It's a TANSTAAFL situation if I've ever seen one.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch

and TANSTAAFL sent. & comp. abb. Careful, nothing is really free of charge. Of course, you have to pay extra for the data file. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. See also: free, lunch, no, such, there, thing

TANSTAAFL

verbSee There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch

TANSTAAFL

/tan'stah-fl/ (From Robert Heinlein's classic "TheMoon is a Harsh Mistress") "There Ain't No Such Thing As AFree Lunch".

Often invoked when someone is balking at the prospect of usingan unpleasantly heavyweight technique, or at the poorquality of some piece of free software, or at thesignal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated Usenet newsgroups."What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back endto get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL youknow." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the highconcentration of science-fiction fans and politicallibertarians in hackerdom.

TANSTAAFL

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." See digispeak.

Acronym

Definition

TANSTAAFL➣There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch