Abandoning Costly Tech? Yes We Are.

When I was in Amsterdam last month for a unique conference called Winter Camp, bringing together networked communities from around the world, I was struck by how many people carried not a full-fledged Macbook or even a 12-inch laptop computer, but instead opted for a tiny “netbook” with a screen measuring less than nine inches, running Ubuntu like this screenshot shows.

I certainly saw that as a whole, this group of over 150 people trended towards the lower cost technology and especially embraced freedom in their software choices. I was there as part of FLOSS Manuals, after all, where our goal is to continually offer free manuals for free software.

Thing is, I think that this trend towards lower costs in technology is happening all over and we don’t need to go to Europe to find it. This article from January 2009 in the New York Times titled “$200 Laptops Break a Business Model” talks about Microsoft lowering their operating system prices, hardware manufacturers feeling downward price pressure, and everyday people abandoning even TV watching for Internet-based show viewing.

Utility, not price

The Guardian reports from SXSW Interactive in an article titled,  Chris Anderson on why free is the inevitable price for digital content. Chris Anderson emphasized that we don’t see less value in Facebook or Twitter because they are free services. Their value is in their usefulness. “That’s not the metric we use. We think of utility, not price.” said Anderson at the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin in March.

If he has been under your radar, Chris Anderson wrote the thought-provoking article in Wired, Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business in February of last year in advance of his book titled Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price. The book Free comes out in July, and it will be no cost to download but will also sell in book form.

Free has dual connotation

And this is the final thought that stayed with me after reading through these articles and quotes. In English, free can mean different things: no cost or unconfined freedom. In other languages, terms like gratis and libre are more common to differentiate between the two meanings. In these economic down times, there’s much more focus on one meaning than the other. What are your thoughts on these new “radical” prices?