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Turns traditional economics upside down Guardian
Book Description
The author of The Long Tail unveils his radical vision of the new economy
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Witty, informative treatise on giving things away,
By
This review is from: Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hardcover)
Economists swear there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always pays. That may be true in the "atoms" world of physical things, but Chris Anderson explains why it does not apply in the "bits" world of the Internet, where "free" is the ruling paradigm. If, as Stewart Brand (founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue and the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) said, "Information wants to be free," now it is, at least in many instances, particularly online. While the idea of giving things away as a promotion or loss leader isn't new, Anderson's fresh insight is that giveaways are becoming a business imperative that companies are going to have to accept and use. Actually, companies online and off can become immensely profitable when they give products or services away for free to bring customers in and to create the need for future ancillary product sales (in other words, take the printer and buy the ink). Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor of Wired magazine, tells you how to make money by providing most of your offerings for free and charging for just a few of them. getAbstract recommends this perceptive, innovative, idiosyncratic book to all marketers.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Free is Good,
This review is from: Free: How today's smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing (Paperback)
Great read. As a fan of the Long Tail I wasn't disappointed. A must read for online marketers, any marketer in fact.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Better then Long Tail, focused almost solely on web and media,
This review is from: Free: How today's smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing (Paperback)
The next morning I woke up after I had finished the book I had breakfast made of ingredients I paid for and then I commuted paying some real money for the tickets and somehow I could not find a lot of "free" around me. I'm skeptical about the concept, not about the book though, as it seems to aspire to have much broader approach then the famous "Long Tail". I've read both and as far as Long Tail narrative tends to concentrate on internet based business models in Free Anderson tries to dialogue with classic economy and it gets quite entertaining even for those (or rather especially for those) who do not have academic background in economy. The motive of abundance ousting scarcity and the influence it has on economics is well reasoned and convincing. How the radio actually turned out to operate in free-to-air model as we know it today is another interesting and well researched episode. It did not seem that obvious at the start in 1920s.
At the end of the day though it's not easy to share authors' enthusiasm for new, free-based economy as when it comes down to reviewing some examples they are all dominated by dotcoms of different kind. Rarely if ever he leaves his dotcom kingdom, which is not a drawback of the book, unless you expected it to be of a more general approach which first few chapters seem to be suggesting not mentioning the title: "Free. How today's smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing". Seems like you have to operate online to earn the "smartest" grade. Seems unfair, as there are quite a lot of successful enterprises in retail (Ikea, Tesco) or telco (O2, Vodafone) or automotive (Toyota) or... well, you name it, and they are not giving away anything for free (in a new, modern meaning Anderson is pursuing) yet yielding impressive cash flows. It would not be fair to blame Anderson for not writing about every possible business model existing on planet Earth. Isn't it tempting however to ask not only why and how some businesses move into "freemium" zone, but also why others deliberately do not even seem to be considering it? It's left for the readers to ponder. The book has a nice surprise for those skeptical about "free" concept in a form of last chapter nicely summarizing in 14 points key arguments against it which obviously are not left without a comment. It might just be the most inspiring part of the book.
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