Here again, Eghbal provides a framework that transcends the open-source context that inspired it. In a digital economy, goods are either excludable or not (meaning paywall-able, essentially), and rivalrous or not (meaning infinitely copyable at zero marginal cost or not). The resulting 2 × 2 matrix describes just about every way to make a buck onli... See more

You can combine free services with physical goods or businesses unrelated to pure-play software. Fitness bands will come with a growing range of software, but if supplements have a higher margin, the band and software may be given away. "Free parking" business models risk companies giving away their products in the technology business with no margi... See more

To fully appreciate this view, consider that we seldom own anything on the internet today: we license ebooks from Amazon, we rent music plays from Apple Music, and we make payments to borrow domains from a registrar for a little while. Even when we create our own content, the rights to it are often owned by the content platform, distributor, or lab... See more