socialmedian: Could the End of Free Be Near?

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clip

Could the End of Free Be Near?

Submitted by Louisgray from Google Reader

Nov 02, 2009

Summary

If you’ve pitched to me over the last 6 months or so and talked about a free business model, you’ve no doubt heard my rant that “free isn’t a business model.” Most proponents of “free” plan to make their money in advertising, even while failing to understand much at all about the dynamics or economics of an ad-based business. At best, free is a marketing strategy, although typically not a well understood one.

Very simply put, “free” as it is used in the Web world is a proxy for the currencies of time, attention, permission to observe and to market to. The Web-based business must, through some means, exchange those currencies for real dollars, because so far as I’m yet able to figure, landlords and employees and hosting services and myriad others still demand cash in exchange for their services.

But don’t get me started.

In fact, maybe you don’t have to. Maybe, just maybe, some sanity is returning to startup entrepreneurs when it comes to valuing their products and extracting that value from their customers. In other words: charging money for them.

In recen

...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment