Free

Chris Anderson (Long Tail) is writing another book, "Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business." Basically, anything that can delivered via bits will be free. The record companies have no chance with a "pay for digital content" business model. The NY Times and WSJ gave up trying to charge, as will the record companies. In the atoms business, merchants give away 1% of their product (a spray of perfume) hoping to sell 99% (perfume bottle). In the bits world, you give away 99% hoping to sell 1% (Adobe, flickr, games where you buy better weapons or new characters). The music will be free because it doesn't cost anything to distribute. Give it away then charge an arm and a leg for concert tickets. IBM invests in the free operating system, Linux, so they can sell peripheral, atoms based, hardware and services. For banks it's free checking, free mobile, free PFM, free bill pay, etc. I think it's interesting stuff.