How Free Software Changes Everything

Well, that could probably be the topic of an entire book. But one thing that struck me today (a very obvious point, but I will make it, nonetheless) is the way free changes user loyalty. Or at least ought to. I was reading Walt Mossberg's Personal Technology blog today about Firefox 3.0 being the best web browser. Of course Firefox is free software, but so are all the other browsers. In his article, Mossberg declares Firefox 3.0 the best internet browser on any platform..."for now". It is this "for now" that is interesting to me. Not only does the web and the highly iterative nature of this software allow for constantly changing "bests" but, because its free and easy to replace with the new best. This means brand loyalty is a much harder thing to build on the internet for products whose use is fairly transparent--mainly easy-to-use consumer software. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of brand loyalty in the tech world, even in the area of browsers.

One way this brand loyalty builds up is through support for a company's mission: many people use firefox, not only because it is often better than Internet Explorer, but because it is opensource and released by a non-profit. Something similar is at work when some people consistently buy AMD processors despite no logical reason to do so (much slower, often more expensive, etc.).

Another trick to building loyalty is, and I've said this before, making your product a platform. Even if the next version of Internet Explorer is faster and has all the same built in features...I will still use Firefox. Why? Because of extensions! Mozilla has built a proprietary platform into Firefox, and now I am not just loyal to Firefox, I am loyal to all the little widgets and whatzits that I use on a daily basis and that I can only get in Firefox.

The moral of the story is, when software is free, having a good product can only get you so far. There has to be something more to keep users, or they will jump ship as soon as someone one-ups you, which, I'm happy to say, is guaranteed.