Why Free Creates Long Term Value
The concept of FREE on the web is one which seems to put fear into people…I don’t know why because I believe ‘free actually is the seed for long term profitable growth‘. Free creates the commodity from which premium products can flower from…
Free is a mechanism which has moved the web to the masses….if we had paid for Twitter, Facebook, File Sharing, Skype to Skype etc then the online market would not be as large as it is now. Free for me is about creating the market place.
So free is good news….it is good news for me as I get a huge benefit from all the free services and it also allows me to attract customers, consumers, contact, business relationships….at a cost of time rather than money.
BUT MORE THAN THAT…
I love free because people follow the crowd then get sick of being one of the crowd!
It always fascinates me how despite being the same species, we have this inner urge to be different or to personalize our lives. But this desire means that when the mass has occurred, when the crowd has formed….the brightest brands then create value by individualizing the experience, the service, by allowing people to personalize their piece of the web.
I say don’t fear free…see free as creating the commodity from which you can build the value model. See free as attracting the market and creating the desire for the premium model.
Yet another take on Free, and this one agrees with Chris Anderson.