What I’ve Learned From Reading “Free”
I’m currently reading the book Free by Chris Anderson, which revolves around the increasing prevalence of “free” as an economic business model. As I read the book, I thought I’d share the occasional interesting paragraph or two.
Here’s the first one that caught my eye:
“I found that the idea that you could create a huge global economy around a base price of zero was invariably polarizing, but the one common factor was that nearly everybody had their doubts. At risk of ageist generalization, there were broadly two camps of skeptics: those over 30 and those below.
The older critics, who had grown up with 20th century Free, were rightly suspicious: Surely “free” is nothing of the sort - we all pay sooner or later. Not only is it not new, but it’s the oldest marketing gimmick in the book. When you hear “free,” reach for your wallet.
The younger critics have a different response: “Duh!” This is the Google generation, and they’ve grown up online simply assuming that everything digital is free. They have internalized the subtle market dynamics of near-zero marginal cost economics in the same way that we internalize Newtonian mechanics when we learn to catch a ball.
The fact that we are now creating a global economy around the price of zero seemed too self-evident to even note.”
