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Free-PC Bites the Dust
Jade & eann write, "Not too long ago, we signed up for Free-PC, mainly to see if we could find a way around their ads. :) It ends up we just had to be patient. After the merger with emachines, they've discontinued the FreePC program and their Internet service this past week: the details are here. If you have one of these systems, it's now yours to keep. They're not even bothering to have people send back the machines."
>i think of it now as the pinnacle of consumer internet business model madness....R.I.P.
>Theses types of companies really will not make it in the long term that just try to get users
>with no idea of what value they provide or why anyone should use them...
I don't know that you're right, there. I think they did have a good idea, they just got out-competed. Outfits like NetZero or Altavista are proving that better-financed operations will probably succeed using similar (some would say opposite) financing methods. And as far as I'm concerned, I had no beef with them (sheesh, why not have some advertiser I've never met pay for my internet? They pay for my TV). There's probably still room for more variations on this business model as PCs get stripped down to "internet appliance" levels and the cost of buying and keeping paying customers becomes prohibitive.
The overweening commercialism AOL model may grate on Slashdotters, but it's been very successful. And there seem to be millions of potential customers who are perfectly happy with that model. Let 'em have it...
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
If you were to get one of these free pc's, you should follow their wishes.
By bypassing the ad's, you are effectively stealing from them. The only other moral option is to not take part in the promotion at all. But since morality is scarce in the world, the company goes under. Imagine how many people who couldn't afford a pc, being able to get one. They would simply have to trade their time to watch ads in return. Its a simple exchange.
It's not "free"
Its only an exchange of a different commodity.
They also have the option not to take part in the offer.
It's sad that an idea such as this goes down the toilet.
I don't support it, but I think it should be available for those you do.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Neither BeOS nor Caldera OpenLinux work on it. I don't have BSD to try it out.
Work is for people who lack the imagination to play.
Does anyone know when this announcement was made? February 14 has already come and gone, so either this is old news or they really didn't play nice with their customers on the email part -- it couldn't be too hard to set up a temporary forwarding service. I suppose they just expect their customers not to complain after getting to keep the machine for free, eh?
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I saw a documentary the other day about a soup kitchen in Silicon Valley.
.com startups.
.......
.It's boast was that its clients had the highest IQs amongst 'down and outs'. Most of these people were either coders who had burnt out, been put out to grass (for being too old), or had lost their shirts (and houses) in failed
Reading this article, it figures. Wonder if I saw any Free PC execs in the queue ?
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
Qualcomm has nothing to lose on this. They were already using the paid-full/free-light model for Eudora. With these two options remaining, Qualcomm only has a gain. With MS's venture into the mail client market, with Outlook Express and Netscape's client both available for free, Qualcomm was faced with getting people to pay for a client that competes with full-featured free clients.
FreePC failed for other reasons - people are used to paying for computers. If Compaq, HP, and Dell all started giving away all of their consumer-market computers, you would see any non-free consumer-level PC company go down the drains.
The important aspect is that the two products must be able to reasonably compete.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
The things that people don't get is that advertising viewership has always been the same.
Let's take a look at the traditional model vs. the internet model for a moment. The traditional model (television/radio) sends out advertisements to the viewership in hopes that it will boost product sales. The internet does the same, except that they look for website readership. So what's the real difference? Website click-throughs can be tracked. TV ads cannot.
Advertisers assume that if an ad is played during a show that people watch, then the people see it. You and I know this, but the Advertising exec's have yet to get it. Websites have the technology to realize that this is absolutely false. Almost nobody watches ads, TV or otherwise, but until there is a way to track TV views physical viewing and comprehending of an ad (designated by a click-through online), the execs will never know that the ads they spend so much money on are simply not effective.
The reason they took people's credit card information was because they wanted insurance against people breaking it, or not using it often enough (i.e. not seeing the ads often enough to make money for Free-PC). I don't have the paperwork here, but the agreement was that if you broke your Free-PC or didn't use it enough, they would take the computer back from you. However, if you wanted to keep the computer, you could buy it from them. The price you would pay was on a sliding scale based on how long you had it. For example, if I had the machine for a year, but they wanted it back because I didn't use it, I could elect to buy it from them for, say, 50% of the market price. If I had it for 2 years and I wanted to buy it, I would only pay maybe 15% of the price. Eventually, after three years (I think) the price would fall to $0 and the machine was free for you to keep at no cost.
www.poak.net
I snipped out the links because they contained my user id. Subject: FREE-PC PROGRAM TO BE DISCONTINUED
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Dear david,
As part of our recent merger with eMachines, we have decided to terminate the Free-PC program. It was a difficult decision for us, but it's important for us to focus our resources on providing new desktop software applications for eMachines PCs.
As a result, we are going to transfer title of your PC to you. This means that the PC is now yours free and clear. We will be destroying your credit card information, and we will be sending you written confirmation of this as well as the title transfer. We are also including instructions at the conclusion of this email so that you can remove the Free-PC Resource Center (the advertising display and utility buttons) from your screen. Of course, your warranty is still valid, and you can continue to receive technical support on your PC by dialing the appropriate number below:
For Compaq Computers: (281) 927-5272
For Dell Computers: (888) 560-8324
As part of this change, we will be discontinuing our free Internet access service effective February 14, 2000. Between now and then, we encourage you to look into alternatives for connecting to the Internet. We'd like your transition to be as smooth as possible, so we've listed a few of the most popular free Internet service providers below, along with links to Web pages where you can sign up for their service. We'll also be sending additional information on each of these providers in separate emails. After February 14, our local dial-up numbers will no longer work. At that time, all @freepcmail.com accounts will also be shut down. All of the Internet service providers listed below can provide you with new email addresses. We encourage you to notify your family, friends and associates with whom you correspond about your new email address prior to February 14.
AltaVista
snip
BlueLight
snip
WorldSpy
snip
For those of you who specifically requested that we send you occasional offers or information on particular subjects you were interested in, we will continue to pass along those offers as they come in. In fact, those offers may become even more attractive as we are able to negotiate even better deals now that we are representing literally millions of eMachines users as well. As always, if you find that these offers are no longer of interest, there are instructions within each email on how to remove your name from the mailing list for that topic.
Finally, we would very much like to stay in touch with you and ask your opinion about the new software programs we are designing. If you would be willing to occasionally look at new programs and give us feedback, please click on the following link mailto:betatest@emachinesinc.com to send us an email letting us know.
It has been our sincere pleasure to provide you with your Free-PC. We hope you will continue to get many hours of enjoyment from it. If you have any further questions, please visit our Web site at snip
Sincerely,
eMachines Customer Support
**INSTRUCTIONS FOR REMOVING YOUR FREE-PC RESOURCE CENTER**
*Be sure you have signed up with a new Internet service provider before you do the following!*
1. Turn on your computer.
2. When the red COMPAQ or blue DELL logo appears, immediately press and hold the left SHIFT key.
3. Keep holding down the key until you see the message "WINDOWS is running in safe mode".
4. Release the SHIFT key, and click on the "OK" button.
5. Once the computer has completely turned on, double click the icon "My Computer".
6. When the "My Computer" window opens, double click the folder called "Program Files".
7. Delete the "PC" folder by left clicking it so that it is highlighted and then press the "DELETE" key on the keyboard.
8. Click "OK" if prompted.
9. Click the "START" button on the lower left side of your screen, select "Shutdown" and restart the computer.
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Although we sent this e-mail to you, eMachines makes no warranties or guarantees about the products or services advertised. If you do not wish to receive special offer emails from eMachines, click here snip to unsubscribe or update your interest profile.
Here's what I don't get. If someone can't afford a computer and an internet connection (That's about 300$ to start with and 13.95$/month) then how is this someone a viable target for advertising! I mean how much money can this poor person spend on the products advertised on his screen(to make up for the cost of the computer and the internet connection) if he can't even afford that 300$ computer! This idea doesn't work for poor people. It works for people who have the money, but wouldn't bother otherwise.. Maybe all the poor people got one of these and the advertisers didn't get anything in return(That 300$ they had to spend on the computer).. maybe it got discontinued because of this..
This, methinks, is totally out of bound with the prevailing sentiment- but I think the advertising thing has been blown a little out of proportion. I hate annoying and intrusive ads, and I really hate spam email... but generally advertising does have a useful purpose. Namely, to let me know about things I might want. While I am scared shitless of people having too much personal information about me, I can't say that the ostensible goal - that is to customize ad messages to the people who are most likely to benefit from them - is all bad. I mean... i think most of us spend a huge portion of our time buying stuff and thinking about buying stuff... and if people want to let me know about how to buy stuff i want more or are paying less for then I'm a little disingenuous to bitch endlessly right?
It's more the privacy issues and the annoying/intrusive stuff that everyone has a problem with methinks. I mean... advertisements are information... selling stuff makes up the economy... and this is the information economy right? It's making all the geeks rich, we can't complain too much.....