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I think there is the impression that if your service is free, then no one can undercut you so the cheaper competitor has been eliminated. But that has made fre
by pj 17y ago
I think there is the impression that if your service is free, then no one can undercut you so the cheaper competitor has been eliminated.
But that has made freemium companies feel safe. Mark's point is that you still have competition on other fronts besides price: interestingness, marketing, etc.
- timf 17y ago> But that has made freemium companies feel safe I did not realize that there was this special feeling of safety with freemium services I guess... why would anyone feel safe from competitors? In any business you have a revenue model, someone can usually copy that and compete on all the other factors... no matter if your product's price (something very different than the revenue model) is zero or non-zero. Freemium or purely-advertising-based companies should even worry about competitors that release for pay services, price is not the be all and end all of why a customer engages. And since we're strictly talking about "freemium," that implies a for-pay option. The new competitor could be a for-pay-only service but have an excellent advertising campaign (or excellent product + the word of mouth that it will generate) that simply leads more paying customers to the buy button.
- pj 17y agoYeah, that's exactly the point Mark was making in his blog.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]