When I bought some t-shirts yesterday, I turned down the offer of the wrapping and plastic covers. These were free, but they were also unnecessary. I might even say they imposed on me the cost of cleaning up their clutter at home.
Just because something’s free, it’s not necessarily a nice thing. For one, nothing is truly free. Consuming a ‘free’ good has an opportunity cost to it. You might even get more utility by paying for something compared to consuming something else for free. Government hospitals are free, but they’re so bad you and me don’t seek treatment there.
See the parallels with the world wide web? The marginal cost of producing another web page is close to zero. Everything on the web is free. It’s no longer an economy of scarcity, it’s one of abundance. It’s easy to show up, anyone can do that.
Being there is no longer enough to make people want to engage with you, deal with you. On the world wide web, you've got to give more compelling reasons to stay with you.
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