Comments on: Free is Not Enough

By: Jeffrey Tang

Jeffrey Tang — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:12:06 +0000

That's a great point, Niall. It's counterintuitive, but sometimes raising the price of something can actually boost sales, because people start to believe the product/service is worth more.

What really fascinates me is the idea that everything we do, every interaction we have, is all a kind of transaction. We give something – our time, our money, our affection – in return for something else. How do we make those transactions win-win? That's the question.

By: Niall Harbison

Niall Harbison — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:51:30 +0000

I have worked on the web on various projects for the last few years and I was always of the opinion that you should try and give everything away for free to try and increase your audience but I have also noticed that if you charge for something you can often get a lot more respect. Charging people a small amount just makes them respect your product more. People are not stupid and they know that if something is free it is not going to be top notch. I just think that people should believe in themselves a little more and charge for their products, if they are good enough people will pay for them, simple.

By: Opinion@Large

Opinion@Large — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:41:41 +0000

http://www.opinionatlarge.com/?p=203

Let me know what you think.

Eric

By: Jeffrey Tang

Jeffrey Tang — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:07:45 +0000

It definitely is a struggle, especially because people have so many different expectations around the holidays.

By: Jeffrey Tang

Jeffrey Tang — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:06:43 +0000

Love to read that post; could you post a link?

By: DaphneandDonald

DaphneandDonald — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:02:26 +0000

Your post touches on a struggle I have about giving and receiving gifts. It really is all about why we do it, not what is given or how much we spend. It's about what we're trying to say with our gift and what we expect “in return”. Thank you for writing this.

By: Opinion@Large

Opinion@Large — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:25:20 +0000

great post! as our society and economy shifts away from transactions and value being placed solely on capital, other resources become increasingly valuable (i.e. information, networking, etc). People still understand free as meaning “no monetary value”, but new values are developing that require a reassessment of what free actually means to us.

i just wrote a post about this trend towards an information-based economy that i think supplements this post well.