Free is Good...
© kevindooley

It's a disruptive business model, according to Above the Crowd: Free. How can you compete with free?

Free is a disruptive force. This does not mean that if you deploy a free business model you will be successful. In many (perhaps even most) cases you will not. However, if a disruptive competitor can offer a product or service similar to yours for "free," and if they can make enough money to keep the lights on, then you likely have a problem. To me this is the essence of Free and why no one can ignore it.

There are some special considerations when you apply the model to the Internet, and Mashable spells those out pretty clearly.

Can free work for you? Well, maybe. It's an interesting possibility if you haven't considered it.