Origin of the Phrase

Most people love a bargain or a good deal. In discussing the origin of the phrase “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” or alternatively, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” in a 1993 article in The New York Times Magazine, William Safire mentioned that bars in the western part of the United States would advertise “free lunch[es]” in the 1840s. However, those who received the free lunches would have to purchase drinks. Therefore, the lunch was not really free. While Safire noted that many have used the phrase over the years, the first time the phrase appeared in writing had not yet been found.[1] A blog entitled No Free Lunch has a post entitled Origin which notes that an early written use of the expression appeared in Rudyard Kipling’s American Notes in which Kipling described his experience entering a bar in San Francisco and seeing men at a counter eating as much lunch as they wanted after paying for one drink:

“It was the institution of the “Free Lunch” that I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat.”[2]

Obviously the lunch was not free at the establishment that Rudyard Kipling had visited, and the blogger goes on to note that the food served at the bar was so full of sodium that customers would purchase more drinks to quench their thirst.[3]

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Image created by Flux Kontext Max

What Does the Concept of There Being No Such Thing as a Free Lunch Have to do with Free Access to Legal Information?

A lot. In this Information Age, people often create and get information on the Internet. There are commercial websites, community websites, personal websites, and more. There are governmental and educational websites that provide access to case law, statutes, and regulations free of charge. There is even an entire movement dedicated to accessing law free of charge, the Free Access to Law Movement. However, if people are not exchanging money for a service, they are often exchanging time or information for a service. Kurt the CyberGuy notes that people pay for free apps not with money but with their own information.[4] While most website owners cannot see users’ names and addresses, they can use software to see other information about visitors to their websites such as Google Analytics which will display in the aggregate items like location, devices, and browsers of users.[5] Generally, website owners can see some information about visitors but not all information.

People can get legal information free of charge all over the Internet with varying degrees of accuracy and currency. Only a study on what information website owners (including those who own websites with legal information) are collecting about visitors would reveal the extent of visitor information collected and such a study is beyond the scope of this blog post. However, one can easily imagine a situation in which a researcher is seeking free legal information on the Internet and visits websites that harvest information regarding the researcher’s IP address, location, and type of device used. Enter legal information institutes. Legal information institutes, which promote the free dissemination of public legal information around the world acknowledge that they “Publish via the internet public legal information originating from more than one public body;” and “Provide free and anonymous public access to that information.”[6] These quotations are from the Declaration on Free Access to Law, a declaration made by legal information institutes. Legal information institutes have asserted that people should not have to pay for “free” legal information with their own personal information. This concept of a “free lunch” or “free information” and what people give in exchange for free information really is food for thought.

References

[1] William Safire, Words Out in the Cold, N.Y. Times Mag. Feb. 14, 1993, at Section 6, page 14. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/14/magazine/on-language-words-out-in-the-cold.html.

[2] nofreelunch.co.uk, Origin of the phrase ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch phrase’, No Free Lunch Blog (no date), https://www.nofreelunch.co.uk/origin-of-phrase-no-such-thing-as-free-lunch/ [https://perma.cc/XN4Q-67PS] citing Rudyard Kipling, American Notes, 19 (1981).

[3] Id.

[4] Kurt Knutsson, The hidden costs of free apps: your personal information, CyberGuy (Mar. 23, 2025), https://cyberguy.com/privacy/hidden-costs-of-free-apps-your-personal-information/.

[5] Adam Smartschan, Can I See Who Visits My Website? (No…But You Can Come Close), Altitude Mktg. (Dec. 13, 2024), https://altitudemarketing.com/blog/can-i-see-who-visits-my-website/ [https://perma.cc/6CVJ-5U5T].

[6] Declaration on Free Access to Law, (2007), http://www.worldlii.org/worldlii/declaration/montreal_en.html [https://perma.cc/6R75-7P4Z].