Professor Dean, I understand that you hate everything Chris Anderson but I agree with what he said in "Free". I have heard the example used in the beginning about Gilette before, they were the first company for the most part to give their product away in order to gain business. That idea evolved throughout the article to say there are still ways you can figure out how to profit out of a free services just like craigslist and google. He says how free is what people want. The final section I think sums up the article well. He says...
"Between digital economics and the wholesale embrace of King's Gillette's experiment in price shifting, we are entering an era when free will be seen as the norm, not an anomaly. How big a deal is that?"
...I don't believe that this is a big deal. We have seen throughout history that money is still made off of being free. Another thing that he mentions in this article is that...
"Traditionalists wring their hands about the "vaporization of value" and "demonetization" of entire industries. The success of craigslist's free listings, for instance, has hurt the newspaper classified ad business. But that lost newspaper revenue is certainly not ending up in the craigslist coffers. In 2006, the site earned an estimated $40 million from the few things it charges for. That's about 12 percent of the $326 million by which classified ad revenue declined that year"...
...with that being said, do you think that everything being free will be a big deal? Because to me it seems hard to answer other than yes or no. What do you think?
Also Professor Dean, I like posting articles from wired.com, is that an issue because of your passionate dislike for Chris Anderson? If so I won't mind looking for links else where.
It's great if you post articles from Wired.com--it's a totally important publication.
ReplyDeleteI should say something like everyone is entitled to their own opinion and so it's absolutely fine for you to agree with Anderson. But I sorta don't really believe this because I don't think people should continue to believe ideas that are wrong--so I want to try to convince you that Anderson is wrong. If I can't convince you, then I've failed and it would make perfect sense for you to hold on to ideas that you find persuasive.
Ask yourself what's missing in Anderson's magical view of a free economy.
I think what is missing in this magical "free" economy is that nothing in the world is truly free. I may receive a free service from a website such as google, but someone had to pay to create the software and pay for the servers, ect... I understand that but at some point doesn't it truly become free? Once everything has been payed for and profited off? Doesn't that service truly become free except for the advertising?
ReplyDeletewhat about the people who do the work? what about upgrades (iPhone 5 this summer)? what about glitches and viruses and new features? the thing about capitalism is that nothing is ever completed, the circuit keeps going, and in the digital economy it accelerates. Just like some people think they need a new car every 3 or 4 years, so do most folks who use computers regularly think that they are outdated at around 4 years. Also, people migrate from platform to platform--MySpace, Facebook, Twitter--looking for something new. Every new platform, new thing, new upgrade--even maintaining the status quo--takes labor.
ReplyDeleteit takes labor but when that labor and upgrades for creating the new thing become payed off it becomes free again. Then the new thing again...i think it is a never ending cycle right?
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