Friday, September 4, 2009

Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Book CoverFree: The Future of a Radical Price
By Anderson, Chris
2009/07 - Hyperion Books
9781401322908


Chris Anderson's previous book The Long Tail was a profound influence on my thinking regarding the future of the internet economy, and this book takes a similarly simple idea and makes it resound. Essentially, Anderson argues that the cost of providing services on the internet has become so cheap that it essentially costs nothing, and argues that the business model of the future will involve giving something of value away in order to get people to pay for something of higher value. This has already been a controversial book...see Malcolm Gladwell's review in the New Yorker...but it is full of big ideas regarding an unclear future.