Freeconomics

Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail” was a best seller and highly influential read a couple of years ago ...it certainly challenged my long held views about the nature of scarcity in an increasingly digital age. His new book due out in 2009 is about the power and impact of the word “free” in economcis and markets .... and there is a terrific article in the Guardian today about this written by Stuart Jeffries.

“Anderson’s freeconomics thesis is that more and more goods and services are being provided for free and that those businesses that fail to follow suit are likely to go to the wall. “As much as we complain about how expensive things are getting, we’re surrounded by forces that are making them cheaper,” Anderson wrote in a recent article that will form the basis of a book called Free, to be published next year. “Forty years ago, charity was dominated by clothing drives for the poor. Now you can get a T-shirt for less than the price of a cup of coffee, thanks to China and global sourcing. So too for toys, gadgets and commodities of every sort. Even cocaine has pretty much never been cheaper (globalisation works in mysterious ways).”

The remainder of the article is here and you might also want to pop along to Chris Anderson’s blog. Dan Ariely also writes about the extraordinary influence of the word free on our behaviour as consumers in his new book Predictably Irrational.