Return of the Free/Low-Cost PC?

On the subject of consumer electronics …

How low can it go? The price of PCs, that is. The cheapest desktop PC I was able to find online was selling for less than US$300. That's pretty cheap, but remember the era of FreePC and PeoplePC (now an ISP)?

These and several other start-ups in the first round of the Internet offered free (ad-supported) PCs to consumers. The consensus was that the concept was flawed. (I had a friend who ran such a start-up and I almost worked for him.)

But now, the US$100 laptop and the rumored "Google Cube" suggest the era of the free PC may be here again. The idea of an ad-supported PC is less preposterous today than it was seven years ago.

Regardless, if it doesn't get to free it will get close. Deflation (or something akin to it) is happening in the PC market.