November 26, 2007 11:18 AM
Free the Internet from Free Stuff Online
Came across a great list of the "101 Best Web Freebies" put out by BusinessWeek.
It's got links to all sorts of interesting things you can find online that are free, including a host of Internet applications and services that allow you to do everything from make phone calls to manage your finances to design business cards.
But in all honesty, I kind of hate this list.
One of the biggest challenges the Internet faces is the sense among the average consumer that everything found online is, or at least should be, free. At most, you only need to sit through some ads to do what you want to do. The thought of actually paying for something is totally foreign
Of course, the exception to this is online retailers, where you're buying something online that you might normally go to a store to purchase.
But what about the thousands of broadband applications that are out there?
I'm a firm believer that ad dollars can only support so much, and that eventually consumers will have to start being willing to pay for services they receive online.
Yet this understanding is still incredibly nascent, especially with most every broadband application available as a lite version for free along with the far-reaching practice of piracy, where through websites and P2P networks you can find everything from movies to music to software, download it to your computer, and not pay a cent.
The most important thing that needs to be impressed on Internet users is that while there's a ton of great stuff available for free online, there's a growing number of applications, services, and content available for a fee online, and that the value they'll receive by paying for these things can far outweigh their cost.