An interesting discussion of the economics of online language learning

Check out the comments on this article from European Tech Crucnh about Babbel's decision to cut out the free.

Comments

[John Fotheringham]

While Babel's argument for eliminating "freemium", ad-supported content seems logical on the surface, I think it is short-sighted, and will ultimately fail. I am not saying that they (or any online service) should offer EVERYTHING for free, but they need to be more creative about how they monetize their site.

Steve, if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend checking out "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson (author of "The Long Tail"). He makes a good case for why "free" is the future of profitable businesses.

[Steve Kaufmann]

We will see John. I think that at some point you have to stand up and see if people are willing to pay for what you are doing for them. If not, then you than have to do something else.

By the way, we are continuing to evolve at LingQ, so stay posted. At some point it would be great to see a review of LingQ on your blog.

Steve