Found in 5 comments on Hacker News
mch82 · 2021-12-30 · Original thread
One reference is “Free” by Chris Anderson, https://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp...

DHH has written about abundance as part of his approach to Rails, https://world.hey.com/dhh/i-won-t-let-you-pay-me-for-my-open...

The “Post-scarcity economy” article on Wikipedia lists a number of references, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

Generally, computing trends toward abundance. Computers are priced about the same, but do more each generation.

Chris Anderson wrote a book on these sort of "pricing" systems: _Free: The Future of a Radical Price_ [1].

Worth a read if you're into this idea. It includes some interesting historical examples of creative selling.

Can't say I _agree_ with the book, but glad I read it.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp....

arafalov · 2015-08-21 · Original thread
This does not cover the "Free" tactic that was used to make Jell-O actually penetrate the households.

That story can be read in the book "Free" by Chris Anderson: http://www.amazon.com/Free-The-Future-Radical-Price/dp/14013... (pages 7-10, available in the book preview)

shalmanese · 2010-12-14 · Original thread
Chris Anderson wrote an entire book about this: http://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp/...
CalmQuiet · 2009-07-07 · Original thread
Yes, there's a lot of heat over Chris Anderson's "Free: The Future of a Radical Price". I had no idea how much - nor had bother to look at the occasional link here, so I appreciate RWW pulling together the players:

- The book: http://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp/...

- Gladwell's NYTimes rev: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/09070...

- Mike Masnick's TechDirt take: http://techdirt.com/articles/20090701/0422125421.shtml

- Fred Wilson at AVC: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/07/freemium-and-freeconomics.ht...

- Mark Cuban at BlogMaverick: http://blogmaverick.com/2009/07/05/the-freemium-company-life...

- Brad Feld's thoughts: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/07/would-you-want-it-if...

I especially appreciate the tip look where I might not have bothered: Wilson's post, who "identifies the two instances when Free actually works. The first instance is the service or software that offers a free trial and then converts users into paying customers. There are different flavors of this approach, the most popular being, give the basic version for free and charge for the advanced version."

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