Guardian: “Physics has Newton’s first law (‘Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed’). The equivalent for internet services is simpler, though just as general in its applicability: it says that there is no such thing as a free lunch. – The strange thing is that most users of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other ‘free’ services seem to be only dimly aware of this law. … But it costs money – millions of dollars a month, every month. The monthly amount is called the ‘burn rate’. … It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the best way to get big fast is to offer your services for free. … The penny drops for most suckers, er, users when it occurs to them that the service is, somehow, becoming more intrusive – whether through abrupt changes in default privacy settings, or sudden changes in the way their update and news feeds are reconfigured. What started as a lovely, simple, clean interface suddenly starts to look very cluttered and, well, manipulative. … It doesn’t have to be like this, of course. It just needs a different business model in which users pay modest fees for online services.”
Wikipedia: “‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’ (alternatively, ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’ or other variants) is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The acronyms TANSTAAFL and TINSTAAFL are also used. Uses of the phrase dating back to the 1930s and 1940s have been found, but the phrase’s first appearance is unknown. The ‘free lunch’ in the saying refers to the nineteenth century practice in American bars of offering a ‘free lunch’ as a way to entice drinking customers. The phrase and the acronym are central to Robert Heinlein’s 1966 libertarian science fiction novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which popularized it. The free-market economist Milton Friedman also popularized the phrase by using it as the title of a 1975 book, and it often appears in economics textbooks; Campbell McConnell writes that the idea is ‘at the core of economics’. … TINSTAAFL demonstrates opportunity cost. Greg Mankiw described the concept as: ‘To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up another thing that we like. Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another.’ The idea that there is no free lunch at the societal level applies only when all resources are being used completely and appropriately, i.e., when economic efficiency prevails. If not, a ‘free lunch’ can be had through a more efficient utilisation of resources. If one individual or group gets something at no cost, somebody else ends up paying for it. If there appears to be no direct cost to any single individual, there is a social cost. Similarly, someone can benefit for ‘free’ from an externality or from a public good, but someone has to pay the cost of producing these benefits. – In the sciences, TINSTAAFL means that the universe as a whole is ultimately a closed system – there is no magic source of matter, energy, light, or indeed lunch, that does not draw resources from something else, and will not eventually be exhausted.”
Gerrit Eicker 08:27 on 20. November 2011 Permalink |
Guardian: “Physics has Newton’s first law (‘Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed’). The equivalent for internet services is simpler, though just as general in its applicability: it says that there is no such thing as a free lunch. – The strange thing is that most users of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other ‘free’ services seem to be only dimly aware of this law. … But it costs money – millions of dollars a month, every month. The monthly amount is called the ‘burn rate’. … It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the best way to get big fast is to offer your services for free. … The penny drops for most suckers, er, users when it occurs to them that the service is, somehow, becoming more intrusive – whether through abrupt changes in default privacy settings, or sudden changes in the way their update and news feeds are reconfigured. What started as a lovely, simple, clean interface suddenly starts to look very cluttered and, well, manipulative. … It doesn’t have to be like this, of course. It just needs a different business model in which users pay modest fees for online services.”
Wikipedia: “‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’ (alternatively, ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’ or other variants) is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The acronyms TANSTAAFL and TINSTAAFL are also used. Uses of the phrase dating back to the 1930s and 1940s have been found, but the phrase’s first appearance is unknown. The ‘free lunch’ in the saying refers to the nineteenth century practice in American bars of offering a ‘free lunch’ as a way to entice drinking customers. The phrase and the acronym are central to Robert Heinlein’s 1966 libertarian science fiction novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which popularized it. The free-market economist Milton Friedman also popularized the phrase by using it as the title of a 1975 book, and it often appears in economics textbooks; Campbell McConnell writes that the idea is ‘at the core of economics’. … TINSTAAFL demonstrates opportunity cost. Greg Mankiw described the concept as: ‘To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up another thing that we like. Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another.’ The idea that there is no free lunch at the societal level applies only when all resources are being used completely and appropriately, i.e., when economic efficiency prevails. If not, a ‘free lunch’ can be had through a more efficient utilisation of resources. If one individual or group gets something at no cost, somebody else ends up paying for it. If there appears to be no direct cost to any single individual, there is a social cost. Similarly, someone can benefit for ‘free’ from an externality or from a public good, but someone has to pay the cost of producing these benefits. – In the sciences, TINSTAAFL means that the universe as a whole is ultimately a closed system – there is no magic source of matter, energy, light, or indeed lunch, that does not draw resources from something else, and will not eventually be exhausted.”
Easy Marketing is a Myth « Wir sprechen Online. 08:09 on 22. November 2011 Permalink |
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Net Control « Wir sprechen Online. 19:17 on 27. February 2012 Permalink |
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