Stardate 20010823.1800 (On Screen): Probably no word has been more abused by American marketers than
free. In 90% of cases when something is "free" it means "we're hiding the cost from you but you're paying for it anyway." (In the other cases the company is using the "new economy" economic model of losing money on each transaction but making it up on volume, and we all know what
that led to.) Case in point: Apple Computer has been offering a "free" CD-RW drive to customers buying the Titanium Powerbook laptop computer. That offer will end tomorrow. Saturday they're going to
drop the price of the TiBook by about $400. Given that a CD-RW drive costs less than $150, that's a pretty pricey "free" drive.
(discuss)
