Nearly every freelance copywriter will at some stage be asked to write for free, or for such a derisory amount that it might as well be free. This isn’t a new problem, but since the internet shepherded writers together in one big pen many will have opened emails informing them they ‘work in a competitive marketplace’, which I hope for many meant the next click was the delete button. The problem with free is that it doesn’t work in any business model I’ve encountered. But that hasn’t stopped the obsession with trying to source products and services for as cheaply as possible. A business model that includes free doesn’t add up The already burning free debate has recently had petrol poured all over it by Chris Anderson’s article about his next book, in which he discusses how ‘digital economics has turned traditional economics upside down’. The idea is that with storage and distribution costs virtually zero it should be possible to provide digital products and services for free, with revenue generated from advertising and selling extras. Now I was a big fan of The Long Tail, with its rallying cry for internet entrepreneurs to setup blogs and start selling fragranced soap and Moroccan kitchen tiles on a global scale, even if it was an old niche marketing principle reheated for the internet. However, Anderson’s new stroking of the proverbial beard and sharing his vision of a freeconomy has met a barrage of criticism in a recent E-Consultancy article for ignoring the physical costs (employees, food, equipment etc) in running a virtual enterprise or providing a proven model for how such a business can be sustained. Which is part of the problem with sourcing services based on free or cheap – it doesn’t work in any sensible business model for either
Read more →
Let’s connect