What is free?

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As has been shown by various studies, ‘free’ is a concept that does strange things to the human brain. It is also a concept that continues to impact the IT world and the Internet in particular.

As Rupert Murdoch as suggested charging for online content that was previously free, a model that others have failed to implement successfully, the impact of ‘free’ isn’t likely to diminish any time soon.

But what does this mean in reality? Well, looking at the likes of Google, it is giving away lots of stuff free, such as e-mail, web apps and more. The reality is that there is no free and anyone using these ‘free’ services is subjected to Google’s own particular brand of advertising.

Now companies such as Microsoft have had to radically alter how they charge for things, as many people who previously thought there was no real alternative to certain market options found that ‘free’ options were actually more than adequate for their usage models.

The more traditional companies found ways of making their services available in different ways (web-served live this and that) as well as different charging models to suit different pockets and usage models.

So where does that leave us today? It leaves us with a far smaller distance between what is offered in the ‘free’ end of the market and what is offered in the subscription, licence or paid models. The spectrum of what is now available means that from simple tools right through to the most highly featured applications and services, there are options to suit everyone, from one person operations or students, enthusiasts and professionals, to multi user, massive installations with volume on their side.

Free then has not killed the old model of paid software and services anymore than open source, cheap computing power or ubiquitous connectivity have managed to kill off the things they were predicted to do.

In exactly the same way that ‘free’ in a commercial world is never really free, predictions of things being killed off are rarely as accurate as they purport to be. That is not to say that the spectre of extinction has been banished from the world of ICT, but rather its movements are far more veiled than some critics, analysts and even journalists would have you believe.

Read More: Paul Hearns