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http://www.wired.com/print/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

An absolutely captivating article on how and why businesses offer services and products for free.

My thoughts: Free services are fine as long as there is no expectation of continuity: it’s difficult to get your money back on a free product that fails (disconnection; downtime) … where money is direct (investment in time and support to use the free service) or indirect (professional image; user’s own liability to a third party). Are consumers more likely to engage with free services than businesses because they suffer less consequence if the service fails? I suspect so, but don’t have any hard numbers. Any views?