My friend got me by giving me my first set up for free if I would give it a shot. That was Friday December 27th, I was done smoking by the 31st.
I have given equipment and juice to several friends. (Sometimes stuff I no longer use, and sometimes where I specifically take them to the vape shop and buy them their own, new setup.) I've only given stuff to people who I knew well, and who knew how happy I was with vaping, and who told me that they wanted to see if they could quit smoking.
And it's never, ever worked. When I gave them free stuff, they've never quit.
I have several other friends who bought their own equipment. Those tend to run about 50%. (ie, half of them quit smoking, and half continue smoking or quit briefly then go back to it.)
I think that the ones who are really interested in quitting will come up with the money themselves, and the ones that aren't interested enough to come up with some money aren't really going to quit no matter what you do. I won't give them a free setup anymore. I'll give them advice, I'll let them "try out" some of my stuff, etc. But if they want to really get started vaping, they have to put in some of their own cash. I'm not wasting my cash anymore.
If someone did convince me that they really wanted to try it, I might consider a loan, and tell them "If you go for more than 3 days without using it, I get it all back" or something similar. I don't mind helping if they really use it, but of all the stuff I've given away, I don't think any of it is in use, and nobody has ever given me anything back.
