Hardware Finally Is Free (Almost)
It was just last month that I wrote the post Hardware Wants To Be Free as a response to something that Simon Dumenco wrote at Advertising Age. His premise was that a free netbook as a come-on to a subscription-based content service (whether video or e-book) might be the savior of media. I extended the concept, suggesting that the marginal cost of hardware is plummeting so quickly that soon much of hardware sales would be so cheap that computers of various types would become giveaways. Well, it looks as though we've just about arrived, with Best Buy and Spring partnering to offer "a Compaq-branded HP Mini 110c netbook for only 99 cents when you sign a two-year data contract."
