Free Content

I think this is overrated.  In fact a ridiculous idea.

Let me explain.

A number of years ago I was selling an air pellet pistol using Craigslist or KSL Classifieds.

A young man from Salt Lake City called and we arranged the sale.

He said he sent a check.  I didn’t wait for it as I had enough money for postage, so I sent the gun.

I called him a couple of days later and he had received the gun and was delighted with it.

He asked if I had received the check.  “No”, was my reply.

“Well it should get there in a day or two”,  he said.

It never came.  I called back and the guy had moved and changed his phone number too.

I was out of the gun and the postage.

He had gotten free content.

Yesterday I came out of the bank and a man had a pickup full of fresh oranges.

The money I had was to fix a truck tire.

“I’ve got no money”, I said.

He was cutting an orange and gave me part of it as a sample.

“Maybe next time you’ll remember me,” he said.

That was a sample to let me know how good the product was not a whole orange and certainly not a whole bag.

Today I was awakened by the dog barking to announce a lady in the yard.

She had come to pay me for some dried cut bamboo that she had got from me a week ago.

She had also got some earlier.

She paid me $10 more than our agreed price with, “The extra is for trusting me.”

I gave no sample to her for her to buy my farm produce.

No free content nor had the street vendor given more than a sample of free content.

So why must I give free content online?

Explain that.

What business sense does it make to only give things away?

This has been my experience.

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An update 3/11/2017

I wrote a comment about it on a forum.

I said:

“I don’t like the free content idea.
I may give samples but if I give everything away for free then,

I don’t sell any donuts, can’t pay the bills, have to close my store.

The internet should be no different.”

One man replied:

“Here’s a free copy of a small e-book I wrote:

Wiz’s Ten Steps to Staying Focused On Your Objectives

I could privately send you a link to where you can buy it on my website

or Amazon but I bet you I get more mileage from giving it away for free then

I would from promoting its sale here.

I sell enough of them to have made it a project worth doing in and of itself,

but I have earned many times more from giving it away for free. Go figure.”

My reply:

“That’s great for you but I never got paid for giving my stuff away for free.”

Then I thought about Amazon, perhaps the biggest online marketer in the world.

Does Amazon give away “free content”?

I signed in and found this:

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