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Finishing Up Free

I am finishing up Chris Anderson's book Free, finally. The end of summer got me, but now I am catching up with my reading. A while back I posted on Starting Free vs. Going Free. Later in the book, Chris talks about it again.

Nobody thinks less of Facebook because it's free or longs for a Web browser that people are paying for. When something used to cost money and is now free, you might think less of it - a formerly hot club now letting in anyone gratis. But if something has always been free and there is no expectation otherwise, there's little evidence that people view it with less regard. Web sites are evaluated on their merits, and people have learned that a pay site is actually more likely to be rip-off than a free one, since it can steal more than just time.

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