The Failure of Free

In: Personal Rants

22 Jul 2009

The other day I saw this post on the Google Books Blog advertising Chris Anderson’s book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Figured I might as well go ahead and read it. I mean… it is free, right? What does one have to lose?

So I clicked on the Google Books link

Google Books - no read link

Am I missing something?… Oh yeah… is it the Read link I can see when I’m visiting via a US proxy? Aha… I think that’s it.

Google Books - with read link (via US proxy)

The Scribd link says it better:

Scribd - Sorry, content is geographically restricted

Buying it for Kindle on the iPhone craps out without any clear errors… I don’t get the book.

I was only able to get the audiobook from iTunes and I’m pretty sure that’s cause I used my US account.

Anyways, I don’t like nor trust free. Free is like saying: Look… we really want you to try this stuff out but somehow… we will eff with you down the road ’cause we really do want your money and that’s all we’re thinking about, no kidding.

PS: Is it just me or should dearest Google Books include some sort of friggin mention that “You can’t read this ’cause you ain’t in the US right now, that’s why!”?…

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