These days, everything good is free.
For example, I recently switched to using Linux Ubuntu - a FREE Operating System: http://www.ubuntu.com/ which I found to be extremely user friendly, secure and a darn sight faster than Windows. So not only is it free, its actually better than Windows!
Ubuntu also included free 5GB of online backup space for all my files. The word processor is LibreOffice, which is free and compatible with Microsoft Office. And if there are some Windows applications I absolutely need to use (not that I have needed to so far as there are equally good free alternatives), I can always install Wine, which is also FREE, or simulate a virtual environment through VirtualBox. Nowadays fonts, clip-art, high-quality images which I use in documents are all free too. Heck, even this blog is free. So, what more could I possibly ask for? So, it's time to throw away Microsoft Windows, as well as a lot of other programs or services that we pay for!
I'd like to say a quote: free is the new paid.
Free things now have just as much quality as things we would normally pay for. So all our standards and expectations are now MUCH much higher than they used to be. This is having some interesting knock-on effects. For businesses, offering free material, free goods, free products, free services, free give-aways has become essential, but these free things must also be the BEST or they will be rejected. The exception to this is if a product is of such higher calibre or under some legal patent that it could no way be made available for free or replicated, for example an Apple iPhone or a Dyson.
Actually, this is an important point. Apple iPhone's software rival is Google Android, which is free software and (arguably) Google Android is better than iPhone's software, however, iPhone's hardware (the phone itself) is (arguably) better than the hardware of most phones which ship with Android. In other words, although the digital world has become free and high quality, we still have to pay for quality in the physical world.
Otherwise, even Pfizer offer free samples of their drugs, Microsoft offer free trials of their software, Banks offer 0% interest on loans and credit cards, Google offer Search and Gmail (to name a few), and even Facebook & Twitter is completely free to join, use and abuse.
So free stuff is used to either:
This leaves only a few essential things left to buy and pay for in the physical world:
Living in the modern world is therefore not as expensive as it used to be, as the most essential services (a lot of which are digital) we pay for are increasingly becoming free, and businesses which try to find out how to make stuff we pay for today free, will be very successful in this modern age of business.
For example, I recently switched to using Linux Ubuntu - a FREE Operating System: http://www.ubuntu.com/ which I found to be extremely user friendly, secure and a darn sight faster than Windows. So not only is it free, its actually better than Windows!
Ubuntu also included free 5GB of online backup space for all my files. The word processor is LibreOffice, which is free and compatible with Microsoft Office. And if there are some Windows applications I absolutely need to use (not that I have needed to so far as there are equally good free alternatives), I can always install Wine, which is also FREE, or simulate a virtual environment through VirtualBox. Nowadays fonts, clip-art, high-quality images which I use in documents are all free too. Heck, even this blog is free. So, what more could I possibly ask for? So, it's time to throw away Microsoft Windows, as well as a lot of other programs or services that we pay for!
I'd like to say a quote: free is the new paid.
Actually, this is an important point. Apple iPhone's software rival is Google Android, which is free software and (arguably) Google Android is better than iPhone's software, however, iPhone's hardware (the phone itself) is (arguably) better than the hardware of most phones which ship with Android. In other words, although the digital world has become free and high quality, we still have to pay for quality in the physical world.
Otherwise, even Pfizer offer free samples of their drugs, Microsoft offer free trials of their software, Banks offer 0% interest on loans and credit cards, Google offer Search and Gmail (to name a few), and even Facebook & Twitter is completely free to join, use and abuse.
So free stuff is used to either:
- rope people into buying the actual product or additional add-ons, or
- the actual product is free and monetized in other ways e.g. advertising
This leaves only a few essential things left to buy and pay for in the physical world:
- food (sustenance)
- government taxation/rates (duty to the country)
- house utilities bills/rent/mortgage (shelter)
- mobile/telephone/TV/internet services (communications)
- vehicle insurance/running costs (travel)
Living in the modern world is therefore not as expensive as it used to be, as the most essential services (a lot of which are digital) we pay for are increasingly becoming free, and businesses which try to find out how to make stuff we pay for today free, will be very successful in this modern age of business.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Add your thoughts, you can even remain anonymous if you like :) We do not moderate comments but please always be respectful as a general rule.