It's not about money, it's about the allocation of scarce resources. The point is that there is always some resource that is a limiting factor, be it time, labo

It's not about money, it's about the allocation of scarce resources. The point is that there is always some resource that is a limiting factor, be it time, labor, energy, natural resources, land, or other inputs. Imagine a world where there is no money and no price mechanism, e.g. the Star Trek economy. Society still needs to collectively implement a mechanism that determines what should people do today, and how should we make sure they are able to do it? I'm sure in TNG you can get enough replicator credits to eat like a king, but not everyone gets a starship or prime New Orleans real estate [1] because there's still not enough for everyone. In fact, prices are often useful as an internal planning mechanism even when there is no market or money changing hands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_price#Constrained_optimisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_price#Constrained_optim... This is exactly what Soviet central planners did: try to set 'reasonable' prices for every single good in their economy while also setting input and output targets for every single piece of fixed capital and organization in the USSR. 'Free as in beer' is an ideology that states that 'prices of particular goods and services ought to always be zero'. Why would we expect that to conform to the reality of how valuable a service really is to people, especially as the cost to produce those particular things are always changing? [1] http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sisko%27s_Creole_Kitchen http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sisko%27s_Creole_Kitchen