Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Barack — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:10:56 -0000

this is crazy, of course it should be free - just like health care - it must be free, that is socialism...let the big companies and rich people pay for everything...tax them more, i can't afford this, i won't pay for it, we'll protest, we'll march on Washington, we'll break down the firewalls, this is insanity, just talking about it...it must be free free free! I will bring free internet to the world, to the masses, to the underprivileged, the downtrodden, the less fortunate, this is our time...free for all!

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Jason Rothbart — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:06:57 -0000

Steven,

Great post. I just wrote a related post on the cost of free to the user. I'm forced to ignore a blizzard of ads or give up my information to who knows what in order to use "free" services. It also takes me longer to do things because there are often marketing gates/distractions that I must pass through to get things done. Even though it is "free" in the sense that I don't pay for it, it definitely isn't. Thanks for starting a great discussion.

Jason

http://groupswim.wordpress....

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Linda — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:54:43 -0000

As a result of Multiply's Premium Service I have been able to cancel two other services I used. I not only paid a monthly fee to each, but both had serious limitations With Multiply's Premium Service, I consolidated into one service for one LOW fee of $19.95 a year. Free gets you a hotmail account and a messenger service. Big Whoop. I need more than that in my personal and business life.

I value my offline and online content, and am willing to pay for someone else to value it as well. Ads? What ads? I never knew they were there when I first joined Multiply til someone told me. Because I didn't know I couldn't see them. Adblockers and scriptblockers are the norm now.

Try renting a storage unit for your furniture for free and see how far you get. The internet is different... how?

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Jonathan Hopkins — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:19:51 -0000

me too ! see below

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Sierra Night Tide — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:13:34 -0000

Wowâ€¦someone telling it like it isâ€¦ I like it. Itâ€™s fresh itâ€™s new and its Free! :P
You had to have seen that coming. Seriouslyâ€¦ you are absolutely correct. My biggest gripe is with Tribe.net

It is constantly down but I get some GREAT referrals for both business and personal wants and needs. I would happily pay a membership fee if they
a) Sold the company to a corporation that knew what to do with â€“ Are the Russians interested? HINT HINT
b) They get their act together and make the site stable.

I paid their $5 a month and found NOTHING was fixed but more services that were just as problematic were added â€“ whatâ€™s the point?

Iâ€™ll pay for quality and ad free.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Jonathan Hopkins — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:47:34 -0000

@Someone @Mike Agreed - the figure in real life would presumably be lower . . . but, why not ask people and I think you may be surprised. $24 is not a lot of money for the value I get out of Twitter. Compare that to the one off cost for buying a small piece if extremely useful software. OR look at the cost of an iPhone app.

I think the best thing to do is engage with the community and ask them. If you don't ask you;re not going to know and there's always the potential to something smarter a la Radiohead - a blind survey of the amount the community is willing to pay that results in an average figure to consider.

There has to be a better way as advertising in its current format is clearly dead/dying.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:44:01 -0000

Roger I totlaly get the idea of having free and premium services and for the most part they are a great idea. However the *majority* of web users have come to expect that everything is free where they would never drream of walking into a bakery and taking a cake from the shelf while telling the owner not to worry the ads will pay for it. Yup that makes a lot of sense.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:41:43 -0000

maybe it helps to be of an age where actually paying for creative goods meant something :)

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:40:49 -0000

also these same people will go to iTunes and download a song but figure you should be pouring out all your creative juices for nothing .. yup it makes a lot of sense.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Dane Morgan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:02:08 -0000

This would definite change the demographics of the users, but not necessarily lead to profitability.

And it depends on how you phrase the question. I wouldn't pay $10 a month for Twitter if I were there to see "what my friends were up too", but I wouldn't hesitate to pay for the service to keep tabs on what some people using it are up to, and more importantly, the casual and instant access it can provide to those people.

The atmosphere at twitter is such that some people can suddenly actually grab the attention of some people they never would have been able to otherwise.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

rogeriototh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:34:16 -0000

By having Free and paid accounts you allow people to choose what kind of service they want. Having back the Premium accounts Multiply used to have is a smart move.

First time it had a paid account there, I was impelled to move from free account because of the step up I would have on the services.

This second round of Multiply Premium Services brings again a valuable service for a very reasonable price.

There will be always those who think everything should be free forever. However, always there will be those who look for more and they would be happy to paying for it.

If you are not there at Multiply, you do not know yet what is to share your life with your family and friends for REAL.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

justin case — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:24:32 -0000

Finally!!! someone who understands. It goes back to the "it's worth more to someone if they actually PAY for it"....
Flickr is a perfect example of how to do this. They offer the smaller "freebie" to get me in the door. I quickly ran out of space and 25 bucks a year was a decent deal....and there! You've now managed to actually create a BUSINESS MODEL in Web 2.0:)

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Brett Bodine — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:45:07 -0000

I can relate to this first hand. I create Firefox themes and it takes an enormous amount of time and patience. I decided to offer a free basic version that would continue to be available on Firefox AMO and would have minimal support and updating. I put a website together to offer my supported, fully skinned themes where people could download for $0.99 each.

I received some major resistance from some users who had this sense of entitlement and felt that nobody should ever have to pay for a browser theme because it was "free open source"

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:30:01 -0000

I agree with you on this ... I don't think we'd see as many of these Web 2.0 style services if they had to have a business model beyond advertising

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

gregory — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:39:32 -0000

will always be more walls than ads ... the trick, how to get a lot of people making a bit of money ...

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

barefootmeg — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:53:47 -0000

as we start to value our digital data more (and as we have more and more friends tell us about their dying hard drive disasters) i think people will start realizing that pony-ing up is worth the price.

on the other hand, paying several different companies to store several different kinds of data (photos, videos, blogs, recipes, etc.) is going to get old fast. because of that, i think that companies like multiply (which offer all of the above types of storage and more) are going to do well in the future. people will eventually realize that paying one fee for multiple services, neatly aggregated together in one easy to use package as multiply has, is well worth the minimal fee for premium service.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Mike — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:19:24 -0000

I think many of the services and apps people find indispensable on a day to day basis would suddenly seem less so if a bill came in the mail. 47% of people might say that they are willing to pay for Twitter, but I'm sure that number would drop when it was time to pony up the cash.

All these web services have really increased communications and productivity, but most people would find they don't really need them if they weren't free. I mean, who really cares what your friends are up to for $10 dollars a month.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:16:38 -0000

Thanks Dane :)

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

That Software Guy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:16:15 -0000

There is no limit to the entitlement mentality of open source users.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1...

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:16:10 -0000

It's too bad that Eudora wasn't a better email client :)

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:15:04 -0000

There was a point where consumers could vote with their wallets. In the online world this is something that they don't have and with ad supported businesses they don't *need* to listen to us either

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

StevenHodson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:12:41 -0000

I agree that companies do indeed need to make it easier to purchase their services or products. One of my big bitch points is that not everyone in the world has a credit card - or even wants to use the one they have for online purchases.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Dane Morgan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:05:17 -0000

I think a lot of people are missing the point. Steven didn't say free should go away, he said the sense of entitlement that surrounds it needs to go away. A company that offers free services and a paid upgrade service is not betraying it's free service users. They are receiving value, and providing value to the extent that their activities help add value to the site for those who are paying for the upgrade and thus also paying for the free users as well.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Someone — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:53:34 -0000

@Jonathan Hopkins

There's a HUGE difference between saying that you'd pay for a service, and actually paying. If 47% people say they'd pay, then 1-2% will actually pay. That's my experience anyway.

Re: This Entitlement of Free Needs to Go Away

Jim — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:40:07 -0000

I would post a comment, but i don't want to add to the expense of your website.

maybe you should charge people for each comment they make. Maybe 10 cents each, through paypal?