donderdag 9 november 2006

Het belang van nul

Techdirt's Mike schrijft al langer over het concept dat Chris Anderson nu de 'Economics of Abundance' noemt. Hij legt nog eens simpel uit waarom dat concept eigenlijk vrij eenvoudig is, maar toch moeilijk te bergijpen voor sommigen. Wie weet wat er gebeurt wanneer ze het wel gaan begrijpen....;-)

"However, the point is that if you understand the zero, there's nothing to worry about and the model works perfectly. It just requires a recognition that the scarcity doesn't exist. Instead, you have abundance. You can have as much content as you need -- and in that world, it makes perfect sense that there's no costs, because without scarcity there need not be a cost. Supply is infinite, and price is zero. That does not mean, however, that there's no business. Instead, it just means you need to flip the equation and use the zero to your advantage. Instead of thinking of it as forcing a "price" of zero, you think of it as being a "cost" of zero. Suddenly, you've lowered the cost of making something to nothing -- and you should then try to use as much of it as you can. One simple example of this is to use that item that "costs" zero as a promotional good for something that does not have a zero marginal cost. When you realize how zero factors in, you realize that there's nothing new or radical here at all. It's just coming to terms with the idea that free market economics still works in the face of zero (in fact, it thrives) and there's no reason to put in place government-sanctioned barriers to shape the market."

1 opmerking:

  1. [...] Wijze woorden van Raph Koster over de recente gebeurtenissen in Second Life. Ook Second Life zal zich moeten onderwerpen aan het getal 0. “Microtransactions for digital assets and virtual goods is a rising, potentially multibillion dollar industry. To succeed, entrepreneurs who are building networked systems based on user content (be they citizens of Second Life or the makers of virtual worlds themselves) must realize that anything displayable is copyable; the value lies instead in service and in server-side functionality. Content is like songs around a campfire: destined to be enjoyed for free. Those who build businesses around hosting campfires would be wise to focus on making the campfire experience great, rather than charging listeners by the song.” [...]

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