• FREE: The Future of a Radical Price

  • By: Chris Anderson
  • Narrated by: Chris Anderson
  • Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (4,794 ratings)
FREE: The Future of a Radical Price  By  cover art

FREE: The Future of a Radical Price

By: Chris Anderson
Narrated by: Chris Anderson

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling author heralds the future of business in Free. In his revolutionary best seller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that, in many instances, businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them.

Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company's survival. The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long.

Just think that in 1961 a single transistor cost $10; now Intel's latest chip has two billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor - effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of scarcity just don't apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive storage. Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy.

Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you're trying to sell.

In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.

©2009 Chris Anderson (P)2009 Hyperion

Critic reviews

"As in Anderson's previous book, the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing short of scintillating." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about FREE: The Future of a Radical Price

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Even Better with Time

Anderson's book has gotten even better with time. What's so impressive is how many of the near-term predictions he made about free have come true and how much more the "free" business model has grown. The book was engaging and the performance by Anderson himself was very good.

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Not Very Strategic

Filled with a lot of history and back stories but very little real strategies given. Never really made a point, just talked about ideas and hypotheses from others business models.

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Hoping for something nerdier

I was hoping this would go deeper into the economics of this topic in a more academic way. Unfortunately, it stuck to high school level economics. Listen to the freakonomics podcast episode about this topic. It's still not super complex, but it is very interesting.

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Interesting and Informative

Fascinating book going through the history and future of free. Delves into an interesting aspect of our modern economy in an engaging way.

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Worth every penny

This was a fascinating read and look into the world of economics from the perspective of free. Politicians to rehash the same idea couple of times for the most part everything is fresh and new. I personally would recommend anybody who is in economics are planning on starting a business definitely give this a read.

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Great Informational Book

It is very attention catching. If you have even an inkling of wanting to start your own business, you should probably use one of these strategies.

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amazing insite into free

who really thought about how or why free is free. the author really digs into free and give a the best outline and stories about free. I would buy that for a dollar....

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I had no idea this kind of marketing conceptualiza

I had no idea that this kind of marketing conceptualization goes on. This author seems to know of what he speaks will though I have no doubt that there may be businessmen who would disagree with him on certain subjects. His breadth and depth or interesting he covers a lot of ground and yet he's able to list 50 ways to handle a free marketing and ever. He is enlightening to those of us who are not or at least have not been in the free-market. In a sense, this is capitalism at its best.
The medium is the message stands true. Thank you mr. Anderson.

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Empty . . .

Did not hold my interest. Flat and boring. I could only get through 1 hour.

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garbage

still garbage ... plus thirteen other words, If I do say so myself. again ... garbeige.

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