Free: The Future of a Radical Price First Edition

by Chris Anderson (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-1401322908

ISBN-10: 1401322905

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The New York Times bestselling author heralds the future of business in Free.

In his revolutionary bestseller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company's survival.

The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long. Just think that in 1961, a single transistor cost $10; now Intel's latest chip has two billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor--effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of scarcity just don't apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive storage.

Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy. Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you're trying to sell.

In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all, argues Anderson (The Long Tail). He illustrates how savvy businesses are raking it in with indirect routes from product to revenue with such models as cross-subsidies (giving away a DVR to sell cable service) and freemiums (offering Flickr for free while selling the superior FlickrPro to serious users). New media models have allowed successes like Obama's campaign billboards on Xbox Live, Webkinz dolls and Radiohead's name-your-own-price experiment with its latest album. A generational and global shift is at play—those below 30 won't pay for information, knowing it will be available somewhere for free, and in China, piracy accounts for about 95% of music consumption—to the delight of artists and labels, who profit off free publicity through concerts and merchandising. Anderson provides a thorough overview of the history of pricing and commerce, the mental transaction costs that differentiate zero and any other price into two entirely different markets, the psychology of digital piracy and the open-source war between Microsoft and Linux. As in Anderson's previous book, the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing short of scintillating. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Although Chris Anderson puts forward an intriguing argument in this cheerful, optimistic book, many critics remained unconvinced. They praised his engaging writing style, his amusing examples and anecdotes, and his clear explanations of complicated concepts and technologies, but they still questioned his conclusions. In addition to Anderson's own admission that YouTube -- one of his chief examples -- has been a financial black hole for Google, reviewers cited their own examples of industries that seem to run counter to Free's generalizations, such as broadcast television's fiscal struggles in the face of premium cable's expansion. Though some trends seem to point in the direction of Free, the jury remains out for the present.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hyperion; First Edition (July 7, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1401322905
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1401322908
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1220L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.17 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #797,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #190 in Microeconomics (Books)
- #608 in Money & Monetary Policy (Books)

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299 ratings

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Cristian Guajardo Garcia

Free, review en español

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2010

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Luego de trabajar sobre la teoría de la cola larga, Chris Anderson se puso de cabeza a escribir sobre el precio radical: cero.

Aquí, Anderson estudia la psicología tras la palabra "gratuito" y analiza al menos cincuenta modelos que incorporan en su estrategia algún elemento sin costo (por lo menos para el usuario final).

Ejemplos claros y abundantes hay en los espacios digitales. Las empresas de Internet están llevando sus costos cada vez más cerca de cero en gran medida gracias a la baja sostenida de los precios en almacenamiento y ancho de banda. Esto genera un modelo de negocios 80/20 en el cual el 20% de usuarios que pagan por el servicio Premium subsidian al 80% restante que lo usa gratuitamente. Si bien ese sistema es uno de los más conocidos, Anderson muestra muchas variantes como las ventas cruzadas o los experimentos de "pon tú el precio".

Es importante destacar que si bien lo gratuito ha existido desde que tenemos memoria, las arenas digitales brindan muchas aristas para ser creativo y poder jugársela como lo ha hecho Radiohead o Nine Inch Nails quienes innovaron con el modelo "paga lo que quieras".

Esto se fomenta con una nueva generación de menores de 30 años quienes crecimos entendiendo el significado de "gratuito" y aplicamos la misma noción como consumidor y productor de información. De ahí también aparece el tema de la piratería, el cual en algunos países alcanza cifras escandalosas (95% de la música en China es pirateada) y producto de eso, varias personas han decidido potenciar aristas paralelas del negocio, como entregar la música gratis, pro cobrar por conciertos, apariciones en vivo o merchandising.

El libro es interesante puesto que no solo explica, ilustra e indaga en la historia, sino que esta plagado de casos prácticos en los cuales queda plasmado el poder de lo gratis, potenciado con un modelo de negocios que permite hacer dinero de otra forma.

Ahora espero con ansias el tercer libro de Anderson, en el cual habla sobre como la cola larga de los bits pasa a ser la cola larga de los átomos. En otras palabras, como podremos saltarnos a las fábricas y empezar a hacer elementos físicos desde nuestra casa. Absolutamente imperdible.
PEACE OUT

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Reg Nordman

Insightful and full of money making ideas

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2011

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I have had this book awhile and, really kick myself for not reading it sooner. It is outstanding. Anderson is able to debunk all the chestnuts out there around free as well as spend the time to give you some history lessons on free. He also experimented with his own ideas on how to place the product out there for free using various methods he put forward. Very insightful stuff . I especially appreciated his 10 Rules of Free on pp 241 and the review of the range of conversion rates one can expect from freemium on pp 247. The key insight for me is his comment ( compressed and paraphrased by me) that:

Price will fall to the marginal cost (in the digital bits case, free) unless the provider has a monopoly and/or enjoys the network effect such as Microsoft (Office docs) and Facebook. This supports a winner takes all effect, driving competitors to very low numbers. Facebook can not charge for new members because it has value in the network = linking new people all the time. So they will generate revenue from scale - losing with 99 % of the users and making it from a small % of ad revenue. ( or perhaps - selling stock!)

I see that Guy Kawasaki and Tim Ferris both used ideas from Anderson in their recent promotions. Guy generated more "reputation" currency by offering free downloads of the Macintosh Way to people who "liked" his new book facebook page. Tim Ferris drove buys of the new 4 Hour Body , by offering a pdf of the 4 Hour Workweek to those who bought the new book. Tim drove his book to the top of Amazon very quickly = increased sales and reputation.

This is the best treatment of free and freemium out there. If you buy this very readible book, read and digest it. It contains numerous money making ideas. Do not treat it lightly! You can get the audiobook still free at Chris' blog (long tail) :

3 people found this helpful

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Sing T. Loc

Free? Almost

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2010

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Chris Anderson's book Free: The Future of a Radical Price is a great book on how the progression of "free" items and information has changed the way we view business. Anderson points out to us that free is not a new concept and that our history is full of examples like the "free" Gillette razor blades to the "free" recipe book on the creativeness of Jell-O. According to Anderson, there are two types of people: people with time or people with money. The people with time tend to have less money and the people with money tend to have less time. Because of that, it's the people with money who are more than willing to pay for goods and services so the people with time can get it for "free." People with time can wait for a download or build things themselves, while people with money prefer the finished product. Anderson also points out that there are people who prefer, what he calls, the "atom" version of products (ex. you can download this entire book for free or pay for the hardcover). Psychologically, "free" is attractive because you can't go wrong with free because it's free. Anderson points to the argument of abundance versus scarcity. Traditionally, we tend to waste things that are abundant and conserve things that are scarce because that is how we are wired. But, with the information age and digital technology, things that were once considered scarce, are now abundant (Moore's Law). Overall, the book serves as a good assessment of how technology and "free" goods go hand in hand. Today's youth are desensitized to the conventional form of marketing so "free" offers a sample of a product that if it's acceptable, people will pay for the better product (ex. open source programs). The key is to give away things and use it as exposure while offering the better version as a paid service or product. For example, give away free music and if people like the product, they will go to the concerts/show and also buy the merchandising (which is the really money maker).

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Sofia R.

Decent book, a bit one-sided

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2011

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I bought this book hoping it would help me understand a little better the economics of the internet world. There's no doubt that the internet was built around the concept of Free, but like with every other topic I'm interested in, I missed reading a systematic study about what (if anything) had changed, and how. This book does a decent job at it, but it wasn't perfect.

It gives a historical account of Free, the different meanings it can have, and how people react to it. It goes into the web world and those that have benefited from it, and those who have not, and why. It starts off well, but after a while, I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again. It gets better again towards the end, but I struggled to keep going in the middle since not much was being added to the discussion.

At times this felt very much like a one-sided account. The book touched upon the negative consequences of free but largely dismissed them in the grand scheme of things, and I wasn't convinced it was actually that simple. Still, a decent book on the topic.

4 people found this helpful

Tony Scott

Free is becoming an expensive commodity

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2016

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The movement from atoms to bits has created a world of free & zero marginal costing. It's no longer possible to simply offer commodity products & services, differentiation is key...convincing a customer that payment is warranted because of superior performance.

Gino Littardi

Insightful.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2017

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Some useful insights.

Paul Holmes

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2017

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An easy read with plenty of thought provoking stories.

T F

A very tedious book about a very interesting subject. I abandonedit after 15 pages

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2015

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It has the style of a powerpoint presentation and is written in a type of geek-speak that defies both simple engagement and speed reading.

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