In his recent book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson expands on his long-tail theories presenting FREE as future economic model of bit-based culture, as opposed to the current brick & mortar physical or atom-based model.
To further illustrate this point, the unabridged audiobook is available free on his blog http://www.longtail.com/ and iTunes (the abridged version is available at cost - the theory being that the time saved by only absorbing the meat of the book is higher value than the book itself).
This is a great theory, and several big products have taken advantage of this model with great success. Bands have released albums on a "Pay what you Like" scale, Old media has attempted integrating FREE in it's bids for the New Media audience. This is all great, but how can it be applied to the toy industry?
In the case of handcrafts, we need to consider if the real value of out products are in the design or pattern development or in the finished product. Or do they have separate but equally important aspects.
If I am making an average toy I need to plan to block out a couple hours for the design, and then several more for the construction. Depending on how complicated the product is, I will charge $5 - $25 (more on that later) for the labor. Then I need to tack on double the materials, and any other shipping, packaging, or branding costs. And that is for one toy. Rinse and repeat as needed.
But what if we change the model. What if instead of dealing in the in the atoms, or end end product, we focus on bits, the design itself. But how much to charge? How much is that time and effort worth?
If Chris Anderson is right, the answer may be nothing.
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