Chris Anderson is one of my heroes. He’s into lego’s,
remote
control planes – a fellow geek, I suppose.
But he’s also managed to define two major ideas that have altered
business trends over the past couple of decades. First it was the idea of the Long Tail, first
put forth in a 2005 Wired
article, and then refined into a
best-selling book. The idea described
how
"our culture and economy is
increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of
"hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand
curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of
production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to
lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era
without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of
distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically
attractive as mainstream fare."
The idea of the Long Tail quickly hit the mainstream and
became a part of nearly everyone’s vocabulary.
His current topic, however, is even bigger and even more important to us
at Zecco.
“Free: Why $0.00 Is The Future of Business.”
Like a true economist, Anderson’s taking the idea of declining
production and distribution costs to a logical conclusion – marginal costs are
falling to zero for many industries. And
like many economists, he understands that prices must fall to zero along with
them. There’s quite a bit of explanation
behind this, and we’ll let you read it for yourself either in the Wired
article itself, or on his
blog. But we do want to take a
moment to respond – because Zecco is all about Free, and we’ve been practicing
what he’s preaching.
We agree that the commissions on stock trades should be zero
for the everyday investor – not only because the cost of trading is falling
dramatically, but also because everyone should have access to the stock market. Doing so is not a cheap marketing trick
either – free products and services are at the heart of how we build a
sustainable business, product, and community.
Thanks to Chris for helping us
spread the word and evangelize how powerful free can be.
Anderson says
it best: “The winners made their
stuff free first.”