Library › Marketing & Sales Shelf
The Thimbles Summary
Free
The book in one sentence
When the cost of producing and distributing something digital falls towards zero, its price tends to follow, so the winning businesses will be those that learn to give things away and make money elsewhere.
Who it's for
Founders, product managers and strategists in digital, media and software businesses, and anyone wondering how so many companies can give away their main product and still make money.
The big idea
Chris Anderson, then editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail, argues that the economics of the digital world are built on abundance. Processing power, storage and bandwidth keep getting cheaper, so the cost of serving one more user online is close to nothing. In that world, competition pushes prices towards free. Rather than fighting this, smart businesses use free deliberately, to attract attention and build audiences, then earn revenue in other ways. Free is not new, but digital technology has turned it from a marketing gimmick into a business model.
The full summary continues with the five ideas worth keeping, three things to try this week, the 5-minute deep dive and our full verdict, as a PDF to keep.
Get this summary · €1.99
Also available in: Polski · Română · Español · Português (Brasil) · Français · Italiano · Deutsch · ไทย