免费的东西代价太高

免费的东西有多值钱？如果你听到有人免费得到一些东西，你的第一反应是什么？坐在一堆没有用过的东西旁边有多少是免费的，和你买的却没有用过的东西相比起来你觉得有什么不同？你舍弃一些东西时不收分文，得到了什么，这些免费的东西有什么价值？

A lot of questions, I know, but if you sit with them and take them seriously, you’ll probably notice a lot of inconsistencies in your thinking. The truth of the matter is that understanding “free” isn’t easy as we’d like to think.

问题怎么问都问不完，我知道，但是如果你和它们坐在一起并且意识到问题的严肃性的时候，你的脑海里可能会出现许多自相矛盾的想法。事实上如果我们愿意去思考，就会发现理解“免费”并不容易。

I wish I were smart enough to come up with this post on my own, but the reality is that it’s a synthesis of a few different conversations and observations. The main point is that we need to rethink our notions of “free,” especially as it relates to free information, and doing so could benefit us all.

我希望自己聪明得可以独立去展开这个话题，但是实际上这篇文章整和了一些对话，并进行了一些观察。主要的论点是我们要对“免费”的概念重新思考，特别是当它和免费信息相关时，这么做可以对我们大家都有好处。

Free…With A Catch

免费……得先付出。

The first conversation is from the SXSW keynote with Chris Andersen and Guy Kawasaki. The salient point that I want to bring out here is the contrast Chris made between 20th Century “free” and 21st Century “free”: 20th Century free wasn’t really free since there was always a catch. “Buy 1 get 1 free!”, “Sign up (and give us your information) and get something free!,” etc. We learned that if something were free, it either was worth what we paid for it or that it was used to get something else from us.

首先，我们来看看SXSW回应Chris Andersen和Guy Kawasaki的对话。在这里我想提到的重要观点是Chris把20世纪的“免费”和21世纪的“免费”作比较：20世纪的“免费”并不是真的免费，因为总是需要先付出一些东西。“买一送一”，“注册（给我们你的信息）有奖！”等。我们于是知道所谓免费的东西，不是指我们花的钱物有所值，就是可以给我们带来其它东西。

In fairness, that free model was necessitated by the fact that it costed something to make something. But that economic model has changed. We can now offer information and services for costs so low that they’re effectively zero. When the cost to offer and deliver something valuable is effectively zero, there’s no reason why we have to charge, which means there’s no necessary connection between something being freely given away and the value of what’s given away.

等价交换是免费的模式要满足的必要条件，也就是花费了A得到B。但是那种经济模式已经被改变了。现在我们提供廉价信息和服务，成本是有效零。当提供的有价物的成本为有效零的时候，也就顺理成章的不用收费了，也就是说免费的赠品和赠品的价值之间没有必然的联系。

In other words, 21st Century “free” can really mean free. Unfortunately, we don’t get how something can be free and valuable because we’re still stuck thinking in terms of 20th Century “free.”

换句话说，21世纪的“免费”可以是真的免费。只是我们没有弄明白为什么有价值的东西被免费供应，因为我们还停留在20世纪的“免费”思维里。

YAY For Free! Can I Please Have Some Food Now?

免费，太棒了！现在来点食物可以吗？

The second conversation: Nick Cernis‘ post on the End of Free Content. Nick’s known to do awesome things, and rather than change the way we think about paper, he’s instead changing the way we think about economic exchange. The problem with free is that so many content producers (read: creative entrepreneurs) are trying to build a business by giving away their creative stuff. If you leave a brick-and-mortar store with some of their stuff without paying for it, it’s called stealing; if you leave a bloggers’ website with some of their stuff, it’s called many things, but stealing isn’t one of them. We expect to pay for stuff from stores; we don’t expect to pay for stuff from (most) websites.

第二段对话：来自Nick Cernis跟在免费内容最后发的帖子。Nick经常会做一些让人敬佩的事，也因此而小有名气，与其改变我们对纸的看法，他选择改变我们对经济交换的看法。免费带来的问题是，许多网络内容供应商（阅读：有创意的企业家）通过免费提供创新的想法来做生意。离开一家实体店，拿了东西不给钱叫偷东西；离开某人的博客网站，记住了他们的内容却可以有很多种叫法，但你绝对不会用偷这个字眼。人们希望我们在店里通过付费来买东西，却不敢奢望我们浏览（大部分）网页后支付相关的费用。

Nick’s point is that the traditional way around this is to try to earn income from selling people stuff related to but distinct from the content being presented. There are a ton of different ways to do this, but most of them are predicated on giving away the content in order to sell something else. This makes about as much sense as Burger King giving you whoppers so that you’ll buy McDonald’s fries, in return for McDonald’s selling Burger King’s fries, and it’s equally as lopsided.

Nick的观点是，传统的经商模式是通过给人卖东西来获得回报，提供网络内容有一样的地方，却又大不相同。做生意的方法很多，数不胜数，但是大多数的网络内容供应商都青睐于通过提供免费内容，来卖其它东西。这道理就像汉堡王只卖给你汉堡，你就会去麦当劳买薯条，作为回报麦当劳售卖的是汉堡王的薯条，所谓有所得必有所失。

Content producers recognize the problem at some stage or the other, but the problem is that they’re trying to win a game of profit by playing under the rules of free. At a certain point, content producers have to sell their content, but the common path is to go from free to $47 (or some other number that ends in seven) in no time flat.

网络内容供应商在发展的过程里意识到这个问题，但是他们往往为了最终取得胜利而选择刚开始遵守潜规则。发展到一定程度，网络供应商会出售他们的内容，一般的途径是从免费到47美元（或者结尾是7的其它数字），任何时间都一样。

But why should it go from zero to $47, when it can go from zero to $4 just the same? Remember, there’s very little investment sunk into the creation of the content, so the primary justification for the price increase has to be made from the position of economic viability for the business. Surely, no business could survive charging so little for its valuable products? Except for Apple. And 37Signals. And Peepcode. And Leo. And Jonathan Coulton. And the myriad of membership sites mushrooming up as you read this.

那为什么要从0到$47,什么时候才可以是0到$4？记住，网络内容的创意基本不需要什么投资，那么价格上涨首先必须考虑的就是生存之道。很显然，没有一门生意可以给你提供有价商品，却只获取微薄的回报而存活下来。除了为数不多的几家公司：苹果，37Signals，Peepcode，Leo和Jonathan Coulton。还有Myriad的会员网会像雨后春笋般的排到搜索引擎的前面，当你读到这篇文章的时候。

Additionally, there’s a general rule in pricing a product: the higher the price, the harder you’ll have to work to acquire a customer for that item. And therein lies a big hurdle for a lot of the content producers I know – we want to create stuff and make some money from what we do, but the whole selling process is not our particular cup of tea. It’s more like the thought of going to a creepy dentist.

另外，产品定价有个总的原则：价格越高，越难赢得顾客。据我所知，对于很多网络内容供应商来说，需要克服的最大的困难就是——我们想通过自己创造的东西创造财富，但是售卖过程却不是我们擅长的。就像一想到要去看牙医就让你毛骨耸然一样。

What’s beautiful about the idea of micropayments is that it’s a win-win for everybody. Content producers can make money from their creations, and the fact that they’ll be receiving money for said content encourages most honest folks to create content worth paying for. Consumers can get valuable stuff that meets their wants and needs without having to pay what essentially amounts to the inflated cost of products that account for people who are too frugal to pay $47 for something. And we can all skip the traditional overhyped sales/launch process…

小额支付的主意妙在它对于大家都有好处。网络内容供应商可以通过创造内容赚钱，通过发布内容就可以收到钱激励了一大部分的忠实读者创作值得付费的内容。消费者可以得到有价值的东西，有她们想要的，也有她们需要的，最重要的是不需要支付因成本膨胀而暴涨的基本金额，而高居不下的成本都是因为一些人太过于节俭，以至于不愿意支付$47而造成的。最后的好处是大家都可以避免遭受传统广告的轰炸，跳过开始步骤……

But wait, there’s more…

等等，还没完呢

The Psychology of Exchange-Based Acquisition

心理学的交换基本诉求

The third leg of this post comes from a conversation Havi started about free stuff. She’s dealing with the fact that if you people free stuff, they won’t use it, but if you charge them something, even if it’s a ridiculously small amount, they’ll use it in a heartbeat.

本帖的第三楼是来自于Havi，她从谈论免费东西开始的。她面临的事实是如果给人们提供免费的东西，大家都不用，但是如果你需要她们付费，即使金额再怎么小，她们都会因为心疼而使用它。

As counter-intuitive as this sounds, think about it for second. I bet you’re frustrated that you haven’t used something you’ve purchased. It could be a book, an album, exercise equipment, that pair of shoes you know you’ll never wear – it doesn’t matter. Now contrast that to how you feel about the free stuff you’ve received; sure, you may recognize its value, but I bet you feel different about the fact that you haven’t used the free stuff. It doesn’t matter that the free item is “worth” the same amount as the one you’ve paid for – we weigh the things we’ve exchanged something we care about for (i.e., money) differently than the things we haven’t paid anything for.

我反对直觉，正如我不同意上面的看法一样，因此想了又想。但是你肯定会觉到灰心丧气，因为买了一些东西根本不去用，可能是书，相册，健身器材，或者是一双你知道永远都不会穿的鞋—是什么并不重要。现在你把那种灰心的想法和收到免费东西的想法相比较，你可能首当其冲的会意识到它的价值，但是我肯定你对没有用过这些免费东西的感觉还是不一样的。免费的和买来的东西“值”同样的价钱并不重要—用钱交换我们在乎的东西和分文不取得来的东西两者的分量肯定是不同的。

And because we care about the things we’ve acquired through exchange, we’re more likely to use it and take it seriously, since we a) don’t get confused by “free” stuff (see above) and b) are generally more motivated by things we’ve lost (money) than the things we could potentially gain (i.e., free stuff). I’ve experienced this so many times through coaching that I know it to be true; if I contacted you out of the blue and said “hey, don’t check your email in the morning if you’re a morning person,” you might take me seriously, but if you contacted me and paid me to tell you the same thing, you’ll go at the idea like a spider-monkey. You’ve paid for such wisdom, after all.

同时因为我们在乎交换得来的东西，我们更加愿意去使用它并珍惜它，这是因为A）我们不会因为它“免费”而感到迷惑（参照上面的论述）；B）失去某些东西（例如花钱）而得到的东西比不劳而获得来的东西一般更激励人。我参加过很多次培训，有过很多次这样的经历，我知道这是对的；如果我唐突的跟你联系并说：“你好，如果你是早起的人不要早上查邮件”你可能不太在意，但是如果你主动联系我，给我钱让我告诉你同样的话，效果肯定是不一样的。毕竟这种智慧是你花钱买的。

So, while there’s a lot to be said about providing free stuff to people (karma, goodwill, altruism, etc.), it turns out that if you’re creating something that changes people behavior, the best way to actually get them to change their behavior is to charge them for the item in question. I assure you, you’ll get tons less praise for the awesomeness of the free “stuff,” but the people who buy your stuff will be more likely to take your stuff and do something with it rather than just add it to the pile of free stuff that’s already gathering dust (physical, mental, or digital).

所以当人们提供免费东西时可以说很多话（命运，表示友好，对谁谁有帮助等等），结论是如果你希望通过创造一些东西来改变人们的言行，不如让他们为这些东西付费而达到改变其言行举止的最好效果。我保证提供免费“东西”而得到的赞美会很少，但是至少买东西的人会使用它，而不是在落满了灰尘的免费赠品堆里增加一份（身体的，智力的，或者是数字的）

Pulling It All Together

把所有的会话总结在一起

Let’s do some synthesis here. The word ‘free’ confuses us because we equate the cost of the item (to us) with the value of the item (to us). Content producers need to charge for some of their content so that they can put food on the table. Consumers benefit more when they pay for stuff because they actually use the stuff they buy. If content producers used micropayments as a model, less time would be spent on the marketing/promotion/sales process that could instead be spent on creating valuable products, so consumers would have greater access to the stuff they want and need.

总结一下。“免费”这个词让我们迷惑不解，因为我们把这个东西的成本（给我们的）等同于它的价值。网络内容供应商提供的有些内容需要付费，这样他们才可以把食物放在桌子上。消费者支付费用获得物品的时候受益更大，因为他们使用自己购买的东西。如果网络内容供应商采用小金额的支付方式，花在市场推广及销售上的费用就会减少，这些费用可用于创造有价值的产品，消费者可以使用更多他们想要和需要的东西。

And maybe – just maybe – we’d somehow move beyond thinking that free stuff isn’t valuable and we would actually sit up and pay attention to value rather than cost. The best things in life are free, after all.

也许—只是也许—我们会想想免费的东西并没有价值，我们会坐下来关注价值而不是成本。毕竟生活中最好的东西都是免费的。