The Need for Credit Card for Free Stuff?

Don’t you hate it when you want to get a free product — software, library, sound, games, ebooks, whatever digital assets — but they still ask you for a credit card? You know it is supposed to be free, right? Why do you want me to put a credit card number? I am really afraid to share my credit card information. Is this company for real? (It is.)

I know that they want to identify me. Am I a real person? But, there are other ways to do that. I am still okay — although, a bit hesitant — when they ask you for an email address. Am I going to get spam emails because of this? Okay, I’ll deal with it later since I am using Google’s gmail account. I can filter them later. Or, I can use my Gmail account that’s for this particular purposes. Annoying but it is still do-able.

There should be a credit card (CC) service for this purpose, just to confirm that I am a valid user, but if somebody is trying to charge something to this CC number it will be declined. Hey, we are going to use this CC number for free stuff. We are not going to charge anything on it.

I know. I am naive.