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Free electric cars distributed by the energy supplier, where
you pay for the recharging only if you don't wish to view the
freely-made advertisements. Or you could always choose to
ride your free-bike to the free-bus station, while eating a free
meal. (This is the one society where there actually
are free
meals.)
All these free things are only with the basics, and you can
accessorize with expensive gadgets, although you know for a
fact that within a short time, they too will be free.
In this new type of society and economy you are evaluated for
how altruistic you are, and at the same time inventive, in
finding new ways of income as more and more of your business
goes free.
The public is always aware that any minute some business may
change its terms of service and demand pay, and so there is a
constant incentive for developing more and better alternative
free services for the benefit of society.
Since, for example, the first gasoline company to give out
gasoline for free will be a local company, no competition from
foreign companies is possible, and prices will drop drastically.
The same will happen in every economical field.
Because the free products will not themselves be the source
of income, and in order to reduce costs, the consumer
product manufacturers and corporations will be the ones
researching and finding new ways of recycling, reuse and
handling in a sustainable and environmentally responsible
way.
The green-movement NGO's will have free-transportation,
free-computers, and staffed by free-students from free-
universities, developing free-programs for new ways to
preserve and enhance the natural habitat and to create a
more friendly society.
Scientists will have free laboratories, and will give out free
information as opposed to the current system, where real
scientific discovery is kept secret. Better medicine will be
developed and distributed freely, and the free-media will
distribute free educational programs to adults as well as
children.
My free time is up, so I'll leave the rest of this idea's
development to you, my fellow half bakers.
If it is all free...
http://en.wikipedia...gedy_of_the_commons
then you get a sort of Tragedy of the commons waste and over use. [popbottle, Nov 04 2014]
Every once in a while this will happen
http://thenextweb.c...aid-for-experience/
[pashute, Nov 04 2014]
Ad sponsored medicine
This_20Drop_20In_20...y_20The_20Superbowl
[theircompetitor, Nov 04 2014]
Free shops
http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Give-away_shop
[pocmloc, Nov 04 2014]
[link]
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<ptr>click here to read what nmrm said about pashute's post, only 5c</ptr> |
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(it's got to working sometime) |
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Where does the local gasoline company get the free gasoline that they
give away, and who pays for the distribution costs (fuel for trucks
hauling gasoline to gas stations, electricity to run fuel pumps at gas
stations, etc.)? |
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[Vernon] there will be adverts while you fill up of course; perhaps half-full is free, pay £20 to fill right up! Can we check your oil and tyres (£5) and screenwash (£5)? Coffee sir? (£5.99 per small cup). Oh you have the £50/month membership card, you should have said, turn left for the priority pumps with carpeted forecourt and complimentary tissues! |
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Well exactly, Vernon, and PopBottle (and thanks for the
link!), NOT everything is free. But its like Hotmail/GMail,
Google/Bing, GIMP/Pixlr, Docs/OpenOffice,
Soundation/AudioTool and many more. |
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What is their business plan? What is Google's real business
plan? Where is their income from? |
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Some are playing on the stock market. Some first get a
wide base of users and then sell some of the information
somehow (perhaps to the military, to civil intelligence, or
to organized crime syndicates, or to a combination of
those). Others are waiting for a time when their clients
will be willing to pay for retaining the service, or for some
subset of extra services. Others still, like TeamViewer and
some of the Linux versions, as promised by the Open
Source initiatives, make their money from corporate
usage, or from expert services around their product. |
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The free-gasoline will go of course with a retrofit to the
gas intake. Cars that have it, can get free-gasoline. But at a
"price". Its not money that you pay, but you are now that
company's
"install base". |
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So the local gasoline company giving away gasoline would
in return receive some information about the car and
driver, would force the driver to visit and go through the
store in order to get the free coupon, or, would advertise
the virtues of better quality paid-for gasoline at their
stations. And then again, it may be the luxury car
companies that pay for it. |
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And then there's pocmloc's great idea, very fitting for the
halfbakery. I didn't notice he beat me to it. As I said in the
idea, you are evaluated in this type of society, for how
inventive you are in finding new ways of income within
the "free giving" framework. |
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<not working>ptr tag</not working> |
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And are nickles still used? |
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Also as productivity increases, there will be more and more need for 'handouts' (as we already see with the growth of the welfare state etc.) leading eventually to some kind of 'citizens income' (funded through land value and/or resource use taxes). After that, people will have the option to provide their labour for free (since they get enough to live on as their share of the commons that are used by others). |
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So, "from each according to their ability, to each according
to their needs"? That sounds familiar somehow. |
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I hope that advertising has a huge budget, because nobody's going to buy much of anything. |
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No, [MechE], need and ability are not criteria, only desire. |
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Is this like the printer costs $5 and the ink refills $55 ? or the cellphone is free with a 3 year contract ? or the beer is free but the urinal costs $10 per use ? |
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Any of thse are possible models. |
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But on a bigger scale, and looking to see the consequences.
As of now, most of the developed world have a free email
account and a free Facebook account, so what will happen
when vehicles, and air transportation and power and food
begin to enter that trend? |
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Yes Ray, but on a larger scale. |
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Graeber's book 'Debt' has some interesting comments here, how every society uses communist, authoritarian, anarchist and capitalist models for different interactions. The only difference being how much and when. So a free economy is only radical by degree, not by nature. |
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The Freemium / Free apps are very different economically
than what you're proposing. |
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The apps have zero incremental costs to deploy to another
user. They consider those extra free users as a marketing
channel to reach the harder-to-find "whales" that pay the in-
app-purchases to accelerate their progress. |
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There's no equivalent with physical goods, as the
incremental costs to deliver gasoline & other materials is
non-zero. In fact, for commodities, there's very little
margin, so any business giving away commodities would
have huge losses & die away. Any "Physical Freemium"
economy would quickly evolve back into something more
like what we have today based on those physical parameters
& human incentives. |
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Given all that, there is a proven "razor/razor-blades"
strategy, where you give only one part of an ecosystem
away for (nearly) free, building dependence for the
expensive part. |
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Oh, & sorry for taking this too seriously. No fishbone or
anything. |
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Reminds me of the story about the guy who brought in a
container full of left foot shoes. The tax guys at customs
confiscated the container and then when no-one claimed it,
they sold it at the customs. He bought it for nothing, because
no one wants a container of left foot shoes. |
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He then imported a container of the right foot shoes. |
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