Free, by Chris Anderson

I've been thinking a lot about free software, because I think that is where the industry is inevitably headed, so I figured I should read the written authority on the matter, Chris Anderson's Free.

The basic premise: the problem of the future, particularly with digital goods, is abundance not scarcity. Because I already believed, I'm actually not sure how convincing he was. I was totally convinced, of course.

Basic economics takes a hit. No more even, upward sloping demand curves. Instead, it's zero demand until a certain point your product becomes valuable enough, and then everyone wants it. Thus, the free economy frequently yields near-monopolies by its nature.

Getting people's attention in a wasteland of abundance is the main challenge, and then just make sure you have a good free business strategy. The book offers a full list of them. Yahoo's response to the Gmail threat provides a great example in the software world. Yahoo successfully combated Gmail's free gigabytes with free unlimited storage.

One thing completely confounded me. Here's what he writes about books:

For nonfiction books, especially those on business topics, free books are often more closely modeled after free music. The low-marginal-cost digital book is really just the marketing for the high-marginal-cost speech or consulting gig.... (Yes, that's my model, too. Speakers Bureau details are on my Web site!)

Given that, where's the free version of this book online? Not to be found. Sure, they posted an audio version here, but the recordings are abridged, and I still think that's a cop-out.

So, free is the future, but it's not here yet. Yup, that sounds like where we are.