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If You Live By Free, You Will Die By Free
Hugh Pickens writes "Internet entrepreneur Mark Cuban writes that the problem with companies who have built their business around Free is that the more success you have in delivering free, the more expensive it is to stay at the top. '"They will be Facebook to your Myspace, or Myspace to your Friendster or Google to your Yahoo," writes Cuban. "Someone out there with a better idea will raise a bunch of money, give it away for free, build scale and charge less to reach the audience."' Cuban says that even Google, who lives and dies by free, knows that 'at some point your Black Swan competitor will appear and they will kick your ass' and that is exactly why Google invests in everything and anything they possibly can that they believe can create another business they can depend on in the future searching for the 'next big Google thing.' Cuban says that for any company that lives by Free, their best choice is to run the company as profitably as possible, focusing only on those things that generate revenue and put cash in the bank. '"When you succeed with Free, you are going to die by Free. Your best bet is to recognize where you are in your company's lifecycle and maximize your profits rather than try to extend your stay at the top," writes Cuban. "Like every company in the free space, your lifecycle has come to its conclusion. Don't fight it. Admit it. Profit from it."'"
Someone out there with a better idea ...
You mean I have to compete against innovation?!
... will raise a bunch of money, give it away for free, build scale and charge less to reach the audience ...
And my competitors can undercut me?!
This is madness! I demand protection against people trying to steal my customers with a better service/product and lower prices! Oh well, thank god I'm too big of a player for the government to let me go under.
Be warned fellow citizens, in my lifetime I have seen market after market reach the endstate of an American capitalism: protected stagnation.
My work here is dung.
I wonder if he'll remember to include a revenue source in his plan this time.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
My god, that would be a MERITOCRACY!
THE HORROR! KILL IT WITH FIRE
I think Jobs must have sold his soul to the devil.
I think it was his liver...
Putting the "anal" back into "analyst"...
Yup. And scientists gave us nuclear bombs
Which proves that they know what they're talking about, unlike economists. If economics, sociology, etc were anything at all like physics, there would be no poverty or hunger.
Wall Street is just a big corrupt casino. You don't invest in stocks, you gamble on them.
Free Martian Whores!
This has got to be undoubtedly the worst James Bond movie title I've ever heard...
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.