[Foundation-l] The value of "free"

SlimVirgin slimvirgin at gmail.com
Thu Mar 13 21:56:16 UTC 2008


On 3/13/08, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2264503,00.html
>
>  It's about "free" as in zero-cost, but something about this feels
>  relevant to what we do.
>
I remember reading a study about this a long time ago -- how telling
someone they're getting something for free will make them behave
irrationally.

It was research into car-buying practices. The researchers found that
one way to get people to buy a car was to offer a free CD player and
radio. (This was in the days before these became more or less standard
in cars.) You could take two cars, one cheaper than the other, but the
same in all other respects, except that one had a free radio. The one
with the free radio would sell, even though the price difference was
such that, with the saving, the buyers could have had several radios
installed in the one without. But no, they wanted the free radio, and
were willing to pay extra for its "freeness." :-)

Sarah



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