The ‘Free forever’ Business model…
…is scary and dangerous.
Talking about YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp (now), Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps, etc.
There is an episode of Rick and Morty, where the devil sells stuff for free, but puts curses on each item. On the other hand, Rick starts a business to remove curses for money.
Ever since the advent of the internet, the ‘free forever’ business model has taken over the world. Starting with Yahoo! Chat and Rediff Mail, now almost the entire world accesses a plethora of services on the internet for free.
Is that a good thing? If we are not paying for these, then are these products and services designed for our well-being? It has become a cliche now that if you are not paying, then you are the product.
There’s an episode of Seinfeld where a competitor of Jerry offers him his very expensive jacket for free. Jerry knows that this deal is trouble but the offer is too good. Throughout the episode, he regrets the decision of making the deal as the return favour never seemed to end.
That is the deal that Instagram offers. It’s offering you everything for free. You can follow your favourite celebs closely, you can chat, you can share. But how are you paying for this service? Is the Instagram UX and algorithm designed to serve you or to make you addicted.
I feel scared from the prospect of any service or product which is free forever. Free forever means that they are going to manipulate me later on, one way or the other. I’d rather pay the 100–200 bucks I need to, to get the service. I don’t need favours from profit greedy, be-evil, organisations.
Instead, it may make sense to pay for what we need. That makes the deal much more clear. We know what we are exchanging for what.
Recently, Basecamp launched their paid email service ‘Hey!’. They are charging $99 for an year, which roughly translates to around 700 INR a month or around 20 INR a day. I have been using Hey! for around 3 weeks now, and it has completely changed my relationship with email. I don’t need to spend more than 2–3 minutes every time I check my email. They have no other incentive for me to stay on Hey! I am paying them with money.
Similarly, I bought a movie on Apple TV instead of subscribing to Amazon Prime on which the movie was available. The movie cost was around 300 INR, which Amazon Prime was 129 INR. But I know that if I subscribed to Prime, I would spend numerous hours watching content on it, while avoiding the important and difficult tasks where I need to spend my time.
I am really uncomfortable with deals that sound too good to be true. It’s better to pay Rick the money than to get the stuff free from the devil.
