4 ms·
Summary: if your product isn't useful (or doesn't have utility in the economic sense) it's harder to charge for it. Duh. The unfortunate conclusion of this is
by barmstrong 16y ago
Summary: if your product isn't useful (or doesn't have utility in the economic sense) it's harder to charge for it.
Duh.
The unfortunate conclusion of this is that social media may just not be that useful to people. DHH even made this point at his startup school talk - saying that if people aren't that willing to pay for your app, maybe it's just not that useful. I believe they've also stated elsewhere that when they moved Basecamp (or was it backpack) to a B2B product instead of B2C it got way easier to make money.
- jsomers 16y agoThat's not an accurate summary, or at least it's not complete. I took the author's main points to be that (a) 37Signals's offerings are viewed by customers as investment opportunities instead of as consumable goods, and that (b) people are thus more willing to pay for 37Signals's stuff than for the mere "consumption-services" offered elsewhere. The author implies that this is the case even if those consumption-services provide a lot of utility. Point being that in the author's mind, it's not that 37Signals is making great products while everyone else isn't. It's that 37Signals is making great products that are seen as productivity tools and hence as investments, rather than as simple absolute costs.
- stcredzero 16y agoThat's interesting. What if social sites focused on being better tools and less on being time wasting entertainment? I think it would be a good bet that there are productivity apps yet to be made -- ones based on the social graph which can be ad supported or freemium based.