I have no idea what gp means by this. It can be surprisingly hard, but it's not always. Go buy a cooler of water bottles and sell them for 50c in the summer on the side of the street
It seems pretty obvious in an internet context. It's very difficult to make money with a product if the competition is giving their products away for free because it gets paid in a different way.
Even your "sell water on a hot day" idea probably won't sell a lot if you set up shop right next to an enormous promo stand from a global bottled water company that gives away bottled water for free. (And due to the magic of the internet, every spot you pick is right next to a global competitor with deep pockets)
No, even then it is the same concept. The big global bottled company thought that the intrinsic value of the water is more than 50c or maybe more than 50$ . Now you have bunch of people carrying their water bottles around, giving them even more advertising. People think that water bottle company is what I should get based on those carrying it around. So infact, they are giving away water bottle for free, which compared to competitors might be 50c or 50$. but they think it is worth losing that for ad
Ok your explanation makes sense but I don't see how what you said related to the single qualifier presented: being intrinsically valuable, and gp states it as if it were an accepted rule of thumb for all economics, not specific to the internet.
