Hidden Costs

First of all, I apologize to all 5 of my readers for not updating the blog recently.  My wife and I welcomed a baby girl on September 7th and that has taken up a fair amount of my time, as you can imagine.  Now onto the post.

I saw a news story this evening, talking about how MySpace has been caught sharing user's information with their advertisers.  They claim that there is no identifying information in what the advertisers have received, but I think it's fair to assume that the data contained information on how to better market to those affected users.  

This story follows an very similar story from Facebook recently, which did a similar sharing of user ID to outside companies and marketers.  Additionally, Google was recently caught collecting information on wireless networks and even user names and passwords via their Google Earth cars driving around neighborhoods.

There is a justified and large uproar over these revelations that these companies are, in essence, selling your data to companies to help market to you.  I can't say that I'm much surprised as there is truly no such thing as a free lunch in this world.

A while ago, I met with a customer who, when complaining about the costs of our service, told me that he just goes on YouTube and gets videos, for free, of course then asking why we didn't just give it away for free.  This trend continues to this day with our clients expecting something for nothing, just like they get on the internet.

These large internet companies, with thousands of employees, do not and can not operate without profit.  They are making money off you one way or another.  

Clients need to understand that you need money to keep your doors open and continue to serve them.  They need to understand that you're out to make money and you deserve to get paid for your services, just as these so-called "free" services are getting paid for theirs.  I think if you can be open with your clients, most will understand that you can't do things for free and even the price sensitive clients will be able to come to a middle ground with you on how/what you charge.

If they continue to demand something for nothing, go along with it, then sell their name to an ad firm.  

 

Jared

Comments

[Ccduff]

I love this approach! Now I will have to identify the really invasive ad firms!

We have begun describing the Ideal Entry Level Services as Almost Free. The price of entry has to have some relationship with the value added, but since the vast majority want some that that is "just like the free services but a little better" we are looking for subscription hooks that are very affordable but begin to communicate the value in an industry specific tool that is reliable and scalable. At least that is the plan . . .

Congratulations on the new baby! Here is to late night Blog inspirations!