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November 18, 2010
If you're not paying for a product/app online, then you are the product
How does that song go ? Money for nothing and your chicks for free ? Now why haven't they made "your apps for free" version, given the enormous amount of free online products/apps out there.
I can't help but roll my eyes when I hear statements like "Wow, this is a fantastic app and it's FREE". Newsflash: If you're not paying for a product/app online, then you are the product for the product/app stakeholders.
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Not that there is anything wrong with this fact, but lets call "a spade a spade".
If you enjoy using 'free' products/apps in the social space (e.g.Facebook, Twitter) chances are good you make up their product as a single individual of a demographic group, which is then rolled up into their product for advertisers.
I once heard it put succinctly "Web 2.0: You create all the content, we keep all the revenue". You think I'm cynical ? Gnip and Twitter have partnered to make Twitter data commercially available . Who is the product again ?
But what about all those free online technical goodies that aren't social apps ? I'll tell you from first hand experience -- since I've been both 'a product' myself and used it for things I've launched online. It's called establishing a market, getting people to 'kick the tires', getting test pilots to get into the cockpit before anyone in their sane mind would use them.
In Crossing the Chasm
Any emerging technology product/app starts this way, because there's no established market. In this case technology enthusiasts serve the 'product', as much as they're the product themselves. It's a way to iron out the rough spots, establish a market segment for the product.
I've used and I'm all for things like Amazon 'free' server instances , but I don't kid myself. Amazon is a company -- where altruism plays no role -- free yes, so long as it helps them iron out the bugs, establish a market and determine what are the most desired features so they can get paying customers, in the form of pragmatists and conservatives as Moore calls them.
So free online products/apps ? Yes indeed, but you're the product as well. Money for nothing and your apps for free.
Posted by Daniel at November 18, 2010 4:58 PM
