broadstuff - Comments

Odette Amour: Limits to Freeconomics Part IV - Freemium, or if you ain't paying you ain't the customer

nospam@example.com (Odette Amour) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:46:50 +0100

And I thought that 2 years of Latin in high school and 4 years of Business school would be enough to master all the commonly used Latin phrases. But I had to check this one - Caveat Emptor - in the dictionary. Cheers to you for that!

cyberdoyle: Limits to Freeconomics Part IV - Freemium, or if you ain't paying you ain't the customer

nospam@example.com (cyberdoyle) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:41:23 +0100

BTW I dunno if my comment went in the right place, it was in reply to Brian's comment.

cyberdoyle: Limits to Freeconomics Part IV - Freemium, or if you ain't paying you ain't the customer

nospam@example.com (cyberdoyle) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:54:01 +0100

I think we have had this conversation before at a colloquium at Wirksworth? I still don't see an answer to freesville, but if you add up all your comms bills then with FttH they could all be put into one affordable package? Then as a pulldown user you could subscribe to whatever your personal interest is, and pay to view whatever people want to charge for. If it is good the people will pay, if it is boring they won't. Just like I would pay to watch a certain film but wouldn't pay twopence to watch a soap? I would pay to read an article of interest, recommended by a friend? I wouldn't pay to wade through a hundred pages of drivel written by a spin doctor. You pays your money and makes your choice. I would also be tempted to pay having had a 'free' taste. Just like they do in supermarkets, little bit of cheese on the mousetrap is always free.

Brian Condon: Limits to Freeconomics Part IV - Freemium, or if you ain't paying you ain't the customer

nospam@example.com (Brian Condon) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:06:50 +0100

I agree with much of your observation on this.

I think a lot of this stuff on 'free' vs 'paid' is actually driven by the vested interests and incumbents trying to preserve their outmoded business models.

I pay £540 a year from my iPhone (which includes 'free' internet access to the Cloud WiFi).

I pay £660 a year to Sky for service which includes 'free' access to some channels (many of which I pay a TV licence fee for).

I pay £299.88 a year for internet access to my local (Wireless) ISP for 2 MB symmetric connection.

UK consumers pay over £50bn for their communications consumption writ large (average family spends more on comms than on heat or light).

If the market participants can't get their business models sorted out, it's not down to me.

I do lots of stuff for 'free', I do stuff I get paid for and I do stuff for 'free' initially that then becomes 'paid for'. My choice.

My 'Day Job' is managing my portfolio of 'freeness' and 'non-freeness'.

There is No Business As Usual. In an NBAU world you just have to deal with it.

Brian

alan p: Limits to Freeconomics Part IV - Freemium, or if you ain't paying you ain't the customer

nospam@example.com (alan p) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:26:48 +0100

Great minds - I was adding it in as you were writing the comment (honest )

Taylor Davidson: Limits to Freeconomics Part IV - Freemium, or if you ain't paying you ain't the customer

nospam@example.com (Taylor Davidson) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:20:24 +0100

It's interesting to think of the change in the "free" debate (or perhaps, the mass media's realization of economics) in light of Facebook's intent and plans to fundamentally change privacy defaults: an example of a company realizing they need to get more serious about pimping out their users to make money from "free".

Taylor Davidson: The Free Market for Snake Oil and the Age of Unreason

nospam@example.com (Taylor Davidson) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:02:15 +0100

Alan: ah, agreed. Old paper journos knew how to cover themselves because they knew it was a long-term, multiple-term game, whereas most newer entrants (bloggers, etc.) are newer to the game.

I was thinking about how there always used to be inaccurate information spread within social groups, but since it was hard to dip into those groups we couldn't "see" or "hear" about the inaccuracies and faulty logic; but now we can. I always try to think about if the behaviour is truly different, or if we're just now more aware of what's always existed.

But that's beside the entire "free" debate. I'm glad the debate is re-emerging, simply because it's been fundamentally misunderstood for a long time.

James Wallis: The Free Market for Snake Oil and the Age of Unreason

nospam@example.com (James Wallis) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:13:01 +0100

"The economic version of a perpetual motion machine". Very nicely put.

alan p: The Free Market for Snake Oil and the Age of Unreason

nospam@example.com (alan p) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:37:43 +0100

@Chris more than that - Gladwell parked tanks on the whole Web 2.0 lawn because he is asserting that its underlying economics are bollocks - goes far further than just Anderson

@Taylor my thought was that the old papers used to have to pay lip service to giving 2 sides, whereas most blogs do none of that. Also

Taylor Davidson: The Free Market for Snake Oil and the Age of Unreason

nospam@example.com (Taylor Davidson) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:42:24 +0100

But was the Age of Old Media really the age of reason? Has broader access to media distribution channels really changed the dynamic or merely applied it to a larger scale?

Meaning: there has always been an uneven distribution of megaphones, why does this new distribution lead to less reason (on the average, at the median, overall)?