Is the Power of Free Unstoppable?
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008Increasingly you can find anything that you’re looking for on the Internet for free. Is this a passing fad or a long-term trend? One day, will we see everything freely available online?
Photo by aussiegall
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine is working on a book called Freeconomics. The theory behind this book is that companies are increasingly offering services and products for no cost at all, as technology marches forward, reducing costs so much as to be negligible. If Anderson is right, the outlook for the consumer looks particularly rosy.
Of course, there is nothing new to free. Free has long been financed by cross-subsidies, such as advertising or future sales or services. The difference, as Anderson sees it, is that the technology that powers the Web has led and is leading us to a point where the cost of offering services and products is very close to nothing.
We can see this clearly in web hosting, where costs are continually dropping, while features offered continue to improve. In time, it is not too much to expect to see zero cost web hosting offered.
In website design, web designers now routinely produce free website templates, although a customized website design still costs money. Real Free Websites is able to offer websites with no design fee by offsetting the cost of producing a custom website design with paid web hosting. Whereas web hosting costs are tied to technology and increases in efficiency will continue to lower costs to zero, web design is very dependent on human inputs. Technology can and does aid the process, but this is still marginal. Over time no doubt the assistance from technology will increase, and reduce the necessary man-hours that currently go into web design. However, as can be seen from comparing current automated web design software with manual coding, there is still a long way to go.
The great thing about Free is that it heralds innovation. Free cuts down the barriers and opens the gates. People don’t have to worry about losing money or taking risks. They are free to experiment, create and grow. We are pleased to be making a small contribution to this development.
A number of others have written about Freeconomics:
- Read Anderson’s article on Wired Magazine or a shorter version on the Economist
- The Guardian Online provides a lengthy summary
- Read Write Web provides an alternative view of Free, warning of its dangers and why it may not be such a good thing and leading to monopolies
