When “Free” isn’t better than Paid service?
I’ve posted some post about Chris Anderssons upcoming book and theory Free. It seems not to have received the same impact as The Long Tail, but he isn’t done yet, and I’m looking forward to dive deeper into his theory. That Free is the future for digital content and services. Still, can it be that some times Free loses to paid services? In the recent episode of Bonus Round over at GameTrailers, were the current topic is Online Services, Michael Pachter claims the difference. The discussion regards the Free Playstation Network services vs. the monthly costly Xbox Live, were Live seems to have attracted more players that use the services. As Michael Pachter says about the problem of Playstation network not attracting players in the same way: “Free actually hurt them”, he also is astound that free can cause more grief and that free let all kinds of retards into the service. Were paying customers from Live have the paid privilege to complain.
He has a point here. Sometimes maybe paid services work better than free, in that it attract more quality customers, were the big selling point is playing and meet other people/players. The old notion that price and quality is connected, may still be true in some areas. People are more willing to use a service they spent money on, rather than a free one. They put a greater value on a non-free services. Maybe the future will be different, but right now the free theory still have some convincing to do.
