Those aren't exclusive goals. Michael Hartl has had great success with a free HTML version of rails tutorial. I presume zed shaw is also making money with his learn X the hard way series.

I'm not a programmer, but I've released a free HTML version of my books and print sales didn't decline at all. Too soon to be certain, but they may have increased. I sell PDF copies too.

Piracy is cheaper than marketing.

A smart player will consider the volume under the sales curve, setting a price point that will lead to the greatest revenue at the least cost, instead of focusing on maximizing each sale.

I made good money publishing shareware. Maybe 1% of my users registered their copies. Mostly government contractors, who were required to. And free tech supp led to conversions about 1/2 the time.

At my scale, there's no way I could have profitably bought ads, maintained a copy protection scheme, etc. (Having since done it both ways, I know.)

Many, many artists identify exposure as the major hurdle to financial success. The same applies for indie games, phone apps, authors, etc.

I can understand that, but I was referring to the parent comment:

> We make most of our money indirectly from the books: consulting, seminars.