Topic: The economics of free things. - page 2. (Read 339 times)

"Free" is never actually free, unless part of it could be from nature (rain, sunlight, etc.)  Handouts, subsidies, freebies, marketing giveaways, welfare, etc. all have a cost that's typically part of someone's budget.  If that budget belongs to a government, that "free stuff" needs to be paid for, and that burden typically falls upon the taxpayers. 

Now, move that discussion over to crypto, and you have coins being produced with Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake, Masternode rewards, and things like Airdrops:

• As we all should know, Proof-of-Work requires computational power, which consumes electricity and the cost of the hardware.
• PoS and Masternode rewards are simply a function of the blockchain code and network participation, with minimal effort to run a wallet and a little more effort for Masternodes.
• As for things like Airdrops, these are typically budgeted by the token's dev team, specifically for marketing purposes.
  

The other part of this discussion needs to address the value of these "free" things.  When someone has something with inherent value or utility, is that value lessened if there was little or no effort/cost to receive it?  If the "thing" has value but no utility, is there a reason to keep it or sell it?  Is it the responsibility of the distributor of the "free stuff" to educate the recipient about its value and/or utility?  In the end, there are going to be people out there that want "free stuff" regardless of its value or utility. 

Free things are not really "free". They come at a cost, here some examples:
 - "Buy 3 and get 2 for free": You clearly paid for the 5, but you will maybe tell your friends about the offer, bringing more people to buy.
 - Youtube: free videos. You watch advertisements, you subscribe, you are the audience that will make more creator using Youtube instead of other platforms, you share videos with your friends, which brings them to Youtube.
 - Facebook: free account. You are giving them data like your interests, likes, so it can be used by advertisers paying Facebook to target people "like you". You invite more friends to join, or people join because you and the rest are already using it.
 - Free samples: they make you more likely to buy the product, mainly if you like it (for some people, even if they don't like it, they may feel like they "have to" buy it because they got some for free)
 - Free eBook: please enter your email and subscribe to out newsletter to receive the free eBook.
 - Free birthday present from a friend of family member, many times, are the reason why you will also buy a present for that person's birthday.
 - Free drink because a friend paid, you better pay the next round
 - Free social services (paid from taxes, probably yours too)
 
Regarding your main question:
How could some profit from the economy of free things, and what would the reaction to this opportunity, by the general public, be?

The "some" who could profit could be the general public themselves, or companies.
I could go broad as I did with the examples above, but I will focus on Cryptocurrency Airdrops, which is the main topic.

 - The reaction by the public is usually good when it comes to free Airdrops. To note that if they don't provide value in return to the project doing the airdrop, less airdrops will happen in future, so the general public can't just take the money and run, as this will only lead to no more airdrops in the future.

 - Getting 5 times more free coins doesn't make you feel 5 times better, which is why projects can get the best results by giving very little per person, getting much more people "on board" resulting in more people contributing by providing value to the project.

 - Projects can profit by getting data from the general public, with their permission, on exchange for the "free" airdrop.

 - Projects can profit from social proof, so they are able to say "we already have 10000 people on our community". However, if the community is not active it is an issue. The project has to find the way to make the community give value on exchange for the free airdrop, more than their email. Their actual attention (who reads emails?) would be enough, so that people learn of the news from the project and get more engaged with time.

I hope that kind of answers the main question, looking forward to see how the debate continues.

Something interesting:
When given the option, would prefer an Iphone 3 for free than an Iphone X for 100 USD.
However, if the Iphone 3 is 5 USD and the Iphone X is 100 USD, most people will choose the iPhone X this time, which is more rational.
Great video in Spanish which shows this happen, with cheap/expensive chocolate: https://youtu.be/xmiL94yx28U?t=10m
The video is for free

Enjoy it.

hopefully the concept of a new concept that is on offer can change the economy and make it better than the original, I am very sure the free economic tendency that has been gradually increasingly replaced with new technologies that fit with the development of the current era

That is a very interesting point

Free economy in my idea is not controlled by the government neither is the resources there generated is distributed to the people. Such is controlled by economic index as provided but not controlled by the government. Hence, individuals struggle to survive on there own in such free economy just as bitcoin is being invested by the individual.

Thank you this is quite on point, I try to explain how cryptocurrencies allow people to invest in the underlying asset directly instead of through a stock that represent s portion of the system, and how things like airdrops are a very interesting tool to help day to day people achieve financial independence. I tried through that example to show how the economics of free things which are usually viwed in a negative light can now be viewed in a different light, one of empowerment instead of entitlement, an you are very right in saying this is how bitcoins tarted! bitcoin give way for tweeting about it!

I believe the post was in reference to token economics and the perceived value of things we get for free, not only in terms of price but also in terms of our attachment to things that we have obtained in exchange for nothing. It, in simple and vernacular language, tries to explain the value of tokens as a way to bridge the wealth gap that currently exist in the world. Additionally it ends with a question that opens up the debate on how we can try to monetise this concept. So not only does it have a lot to do with bitcoin, but its one of the basic ideas in which its distribution was based initially, of course this is just my interpretation and AxiomSupport will actually have to comment on it. It is cool if you don't get it though, not everyone can extract the core idea of simple texts easily and that is perfectly fine, maybe stick to being so annoyingly self righteous though, you seem to be good at that.

Economy of free things? What is the relationship of this topic to Bitcoin or crypto currency digital transaction? Ideology or not, it is none issue on Crypto currency Digital transaction. A decentralized digital transaction, no control from any government is never correlate to the supply and demand of commodities in which vital for one economy of every country. The nature of investment in BITCOIN or Crypto mainly touch the aspect of Buying and Selling of the said project with no involvement of basic commodities.

economic free things for a long time now, this movement or ideology starts from the premise of the government handed over to the most economically advanced citizens. When we talk about the economy of free things (rarely) we usually associate it with the idea that it involves a central setting institution that distributes wealth among its people.

There is, and has been, a misconception about the economics of free things for a long while now, this movement or ideology started from the premise of government hand-outs to the least economically developed citizens. When we do talk about the economics of free things(which is rarely) we usually associate it with the idea that it involves a regulatory central agency distributing the wealth amongst its people.  However when it come to the free market this type of leniency is not available at all. Day to day people don't have access to stocks or derivative markets for example, and that helps to increase the gap between the rich and the poor(which in turn requires the intervention of the aforementioned central authority).
New technologies however provide an opportunity for this gap to be closed. When a technology is in its infancy the interest for its development and widespread adoption from the creators is big enough to try and exchange portions of the value of their product for market depth. Put in other words and in regards to token economics, ICO's are so desperate for the widespread use and adoption of their product that they will literally give away portions of the participation of their product, in the form of tokens, in exchange for network effects and market depth. We now have an interesting concept formed from this: airdrops and the difficulty that this companies are going to have to achieve their  desired market depth.