Comments on: Freemium Is Sucking. Here’s Why

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By: Is the Freemium Model Dead? : Texas Startup Blog

Is the Freemium Model Dead? : Texas Startup Blog — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:49:06 +0000

[...] Fred suggested investors might be frustrated with the freemium model, Sam Huleatt suggested ‘Freemium is Sucking.’В My thought?В Take the fact that the tide may have turned, investors may associated a [...]

By: Jeffrey Bentley-Johnston

Jeffrey Bentley-Johnston — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:53:15 +0000

I could not agree more. Your customer perspective is telling. Well done.
Sooner or later, you have to take account of customers and their buying processes. Better to do it at 'business model' stage than after spending truckloads of money.

By: Jeffrey Bentley-Johnston

Jeffrey Bentley-Johnston — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:53:15 +0000

By: Free is Dead, Long Live Freemium | CloudAve

Free is Dead, Long Live Freemium | CloudAve — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:08:13 +0000

[...] pay = Freemium.Related articles by Zemanta The End of FreeConomics 2.0? Is the Freemium Model Dead? Freemium Is Sucking. HereвЂ™s Why Startups listen up: youвЂ™ve got a pricing problem The best business models focus on user value [...]

By: Ben Schppers

Ben Schppers — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:58:27 +0000

The free vs paying battle continues.

Here's my take. All example used to represent free vs. paying are perfect to represent my point, here's why. Ebay, Skype, "Google" (Sam, not sure I agree that this is freemium but doesn't matter for this point) etc.. all have one major element in common. "They are all very very successful"

Sure, success could be viewed as "number of users" on a site that may NOT be bringing in revenue, a la Facebook, Myspace and the likes". However, Skype and Ebay do charge their users something and as a result both have seen much success.

Recently, Ebay has made acquisitions that amount to well over 1B and the sell of Skype left it's shareholders with more money in the bank. Therefore, I do think freemium models work, especially for the companies being discussed.

On a side note, why are people categorizing Ebay into a freemium model? Ebay in my opinion is primarily commerce.

By: Sam Huleatt

Sam Huleatt — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:39:55 +0000

How has that been working? Are you guys achieving a good conversion rate?

By: kosso

kosso — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:30:20 +0000

A: I can usually walk in to a pub or bar for free.
B: I usually pay to get in to a club.
C: Some clubs I can pay a membership for.

The perceived quality of the experience I expect goes up from A > B > C

While building the multimedia conversation platform called 'Phreadz', we had a long discussion about what people would pay to become a member - if indeed they would pay.

You can see the standalone version of the thread here : http://phreadz.com/p/930L6AIG8GK0/
And the embeddable autoplay widget for this thread here : http://phreadz.com/widgets/player/?g=930L6AIG8GK0

I floated the idea past my beta testers that other, free competitive services are like 'a pub' - and Phreadz could be thought of like a 'private members club'. The quality of conversation (and the environment which it takes place) would be perceived to be higher if paid for - and naturally, also if the 'product' is better.

By: Sam Huleatt

Sam Huleatt — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:25:37 +0000

@Peter

I'm not sure that Google isn't in fact freemium. I pay for Google Enterprise Services. However, I also consider my payment ($$$) to Google to be in the form of data and attention. But still, point well taken.

Thanks for the great comments Peter!

By: Peter Froberg

Peter Froberg — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:40:19 +0000

Hi
I see the point in FredвЂ™s posts and agree with his reasoning.

On the issue of scale I no disadvantage in free products with possibilities of buying premium as appose to just premium. unless you release the free a period of time before the premium. In this case the free can be seen as part of the development process, as Fred says in his post.

On the issue of goolge, they don't use freemium !. None of the users pay for even premium product. It is all payed by advertisers. See Chris Anderson's blog for a nice typology of free
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/10/a...

interestingly he also has a recent post around the fortunes created around free.

How much money Ebay has lost is not an indicator of the skype business model, but the over evaluation of the company at the sale. It still makes a profit, just not enough to merit the $ 2,6 billion price tag.

thanks for the link, had not seen that one