Free is awesome. It’s especially useful to the many folks, myself included, who are rather short on cash at the moment.
As most everyone has come to realize at one point or another in their lives, however, free always comes with some sort of strings attached.
In TV, free means commercials. In live music, a free show means you’re not guaranteed to hear anything worth more than the price of admission. This is especially true of comedy shows in the Village.
In software, free means it might not be around forever, quality is not guaranteed, and it might not feature the support you’d like.
The same is true of many other things.
Yesterday, the founder of NY Nightowls, Allan Grinstein, announced that they would begin charging for their upcoming late night coworking events. Each Tuesday event will cost $12. Previously, the events were free.
This is an experiment, initiated for several reasons. I don’t run Night Owls, but I did participate in some discussions leading up to this decision.
The move sparked some very spirited discussions, ones which I believe is important and relevant to many of us who are trying to value our time and the things we build. This discussion got me thinking about the role “free” plays in our lives and our businesses, and the inherent issues with anything that is free.
The Problems With Free
1. FREE IS FLEETING
Allan and Amber Rae (who helped Allan get NYNO started) have together run NYNO every Tuesday, without exception, for 28 consecutive weeks. Allan has a full-time job and has been doing this purely out of his own willpower. If NYNO stays free, then its consistent existence is completely dependent on whether Allan and Amber are willing and able to continue running it.
They could move out of town. They could get sick. They might just decide that they don’t want to stay up until four in the morning every Tuesday anymore.
As a free group, NYNO is wholly dependent on the willingness of its organizers to continue donating their time to make it happen. That might last a while, but it certainly won’t last forever.
What happens to a group like this when it continues on this path for a while? The best example I could conjure is NYNO’s daylight-bathed close cousin, Jelly.
Jelly was started in 2006 by Amit Gupta and Luke Crawford, two entrepreneurs who at the time had a big apartment and nowhere to go to hang out with other people while doing their work.
So they simply invited everyone, once every other Thursday, to come over and work in their apartment. A shockingly simple idea turned out to be a huge hit, one which landed Jelly in a wide variety of mass media and sparked a global movement of local Jellies.
What’s happened to Jelly since then? It chugged along well with the original organizers for over two years, mostly organized singlehandedly by Amit, who personally and faithfully wrote emails each week (it grew to a weekly event) and cleaned up his apartment before and after guests arrived.
Eventually, he moved out of town. In his wake, he left myself and our mutual friend Darrell Silver in charge. Darrell and I took turns over the ensuing two years keeping Jelly going. It was a little bit of work to maintain, but it was well worth the trouble— Jelly, after all, was my introduction to the world of coworking, something which has changed my life tremendously.
Today, however, I’m focusing everything I have on New Work City. Darrell, similarly, has a wildly successful awesome startup of his own.
Jelly, sadly, has started to become a more and more infrequent occasion. Without someone immediately ready and willing to donate their time to organizing it, it falls by the wayside. Perhaps it will undergo a resurgence, perhaps not.
Jelly has always been free, and that’s wonderful. It probably always should be. If Jelly generated revenue, new people could be hired or the thing could be sold to someone else, but as it stands, its existence is in flux.
2. QUALITY CONTROL
When something is free, people have little right to complain. Freeloaders can’t be choosers. Because something like NYNO is run because people like Allan and Amber feel like doing it, it will only be as good as they want it to be. New features, upgrades, and expansions are all subject to whether or not they feel like doing it.
By charging, the organizers are compelled to provide something worth paying for. Sub-par service could be punished by unhappy customers, low turnout, or requests for refunds. Free events carry no such motivations.
3. BARRIERS TO ENTRY
As an un-cool kid in grade school, I was never much of a fan of exclusivity. There are times when it’s called for, but in most cases it’s a sign of insecurity or poor planning.
A well-run group can oftentimes be designed to attract the right people and repel the wrong people. The free version of NYNO had no barriers whatsoever; anyone could show up at the designated time regardless of if they intended to do any work. They could just as easily be there to make a mess, be noisy and disruptive, and steal and break things.
While this has not been an issue for most, there have been disruptive exceptions.
Preservation of Community: The Case for Charging
One might argue that charging for NYNO destroys the community that it built over the past six months. I believe the opposite may be true. Indeed, a transition from free to paid is inherently bumpy: When New Work City moved from a free cafe-based club to a membership-based business, the churn was massive.
But charging for something like NYNO increases its ability to cultivate a good community.
How?
1. DEMAND
Before they started charging, spots at NYNO were “sold out” for months in advance. How much of a community can you have when people can only show up once every few months when they manage to score a spot?
2. RESPECT
People who pay for something have an inherent respect for it— they want to get their money’s worth. A paid service is likely to attract people who are serious, mature, and respectful.
3. SECURITY
Even a slight barrier drastically increases chances that the people in attendance are there for the right reasons.
4. SUSTAINABILITY
By charging, NYNO decreases the chances it will simply disappear.
5. EXPANDABILITY
If hundreds of people are hounding spots for late night coworking on Tuesday, what are the odds that more people would like to work on the other 6 nights of the week? Allan and Amber can’t run the show every night, and finding consitent volunteers is difficult if not impossible (believe me, it’s hard enough during regular business hours). Charging puts NYNO in a better position to expand and help more people.
For NWC’s part, the cost of the rent, internet, heat, electricity, bathroom supplies, coffee, cleaning, insurance, and countless other things is nontrivial. I’d love to give space away to everyone forever, and I’ve tried— it doesn’t last.
As Allan said, this is an experiment. It’s possible that there is a huge demand for late night coworking, but not an actual paying market for it. If that’s the case, then NYNO may likely go back to being free and might one day cease to exist as the organizers move on.
If, however, it turns out that a great group of people find that they derive enough value out of NYNO that it’s worth twelve bucks, then that group might likely emerge as one which is tight, consistent, respectful, and sustainable.
I’m looking forward to seeing what transpires.
-Tony
