Free hugs: free as in beer or free as in speech ?

Stumbled across the Free hugs post from Tymmerie.

The first reaction - "argh. the bloody consumerism. 'come and get yours for free! the next batch is at a discount!'" type of thing, or "Genuine! as shown on TV!" - which is probably convincing to some - but to me is more a sort of badmouthing. They won't show anything all too good on TV these days, imho.

But then, thinking of it - a hug from a total stranger that you would not see anymore is indeed truly "free". Just let them hang around bit more - and you will get entangled into the web of obligations and promises. If you stay longer - you might get even deeper - it would be called "family" then. Totally trapped.

So - since these offered hugs do not have any binding properties (although, take a careful look at the back of the sign - they might have written something in small letters there!), indeed they're free, not in the TV-ad-sense, rather in the true sense.

But for some reason the value of these feels much less.

For some things you'd rather forfeit your freedom...