In 2008 after reading Chris Anderson’s article Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business I had two reactions:
- Resistance, a quick knee jerk reaction to say bah humbug.
- Curiosity, to dissect the notion of what impact free has not just on businesses but creative content.
I read the Free article a couple weeks after it came out on a flight back from Utah and later kept that edition of Wired on my desk for sometime, revisiting my notes to keep chewing on the merits of Free. My assessment at the time was that while there was much buzz about the article online I’d wait to spend much time writing about it until after Chris Anderson released his book on the subject. The article seemed to be the tip of the iceberg and not something I was going to base any changes to my business model on in the short term.
Last week Free: The Future of a Radical Price was released and again I had the same two reactions, but they were reversed in order and my resistance to the idea was much less after getting a clearer picture of the arguments made by Chris Anderson. First lets explore the reasons behind my resistance and then later I’ll dive in to my thoughts on the concepts outlined in Free.
Anything seen as a disruption to the status quo is always going to face resistance. The concepts with in Free really aren’t that new, but several of the case studies are. As we think of our own businesses the concepts with in Free are as disruptive as the technologies enabling the changes noted in the book. Examples of these disruptive technologies can easily strike fear in thosewho might feel that adoption of these concepts will kill business life, as we know it today.
This go around in reading Chris’ ideas, I decided to explore the concepts more openly and thoroughly versus jump on the sky is falling bandwagon. I read the book twice and took studious notes. If I found myself having a strong reaction to a concept, I made an effort to understand why. The result of this approach has netted a lot of ideas to talk about, so for those that want a short read look for a post to follow soon covering a high level review of Free: The Future of a Radical Price. I think quite a few of my observations made while reading Free warrant individual focus & discussion. Consider this a heads up that a short series of posts will follow on the topic.
What you can expect to read in this series starting on Monday, and maybe sooner if my schedule permits, will include:
- General Review of Free: The Future of a Radical Price
- The Assumptions of “Free”
- The Marginal Cost of Creativity & Free
- The Value of Free: Where is It?
Stay tuned…
[tags]Chris Anderson, Free, Book, Review, Photography, Business[/tags]
Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hardcover), priced at only $26.99 on Amazon. Is there a download link to a PDF on the author’s site?
The online version can be read for free through Scribed but the downside is that it can’t be downloaded for offline reading.
Alternatively there is an Audible book that you can download to listen to.
I hope that info helps.
Get it at your local library… for free.
Somewhere up there Milton Friedman is smiling.
Guy
Think again that wikipedia is free…
Why ?
Seeing is not free…google makes it so for sure…
ps i am working myself back to health..
I am really enjoying my audiobook version. Fascinating concepts and interesting historical accounts. Got me thinking too…
In case it helps your future posts: Scientists have published their results – often gained over years of hard work – for free. Frequently, in fact, researchers pay for the privilege to give their results away.
The point being that in the case of science, the proximal fruit of all that creative labour is not what carries value for the people that create it. The value is represented in other parts of the chain from initial research concept to published paper.
Oh, that “free” audio book is apparently not free if you state your location to be Japan. Ah well, I’ll just torrent it instead.
Just downloaded it today and am listening to it now on iTunes. Thanks for pointing it out Jim.
Thanks Jim.
A ‘Freemium’ book is an interesting concept, and one I’ve seen before in the very readable “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air” by David MacKay.
Digital Intellectual Property is prime material for ‘Free’. I can see the potential for the rise of a freemium photo service where web-resolution photos are free, with paid-for higher resolution photos supporting the free offering.
Do you play along with ‘Free’, or just move up the value chain though? For example, sell rights to a photo or only sell physical prints (wall-hanging stuff)?
Here lies the problem. In a market with exploding demand in web publishing a low resolution image is all you need to make a button, banner, background image, etc. There is no uniform product offering for every photographer.
Some photographers only want to deal in fine art prints, while others are interested in meeting demand for image licensing for stock use. The options are nearly infinite and there is no one answer. As a result one persons Free is another persons undermined business.
That being said there are established norms for printed Free. It’s not uncommon for fine art photographers to give a book to a customer who buys a fine art print. The printed book isn’t undermining another persons business model, its merely providing incentive for a client to come back as a customer. Digital media lacks the clear boundries that printed media is constrained to.