The new, networked economy is all about balancing what to charge for and what to give away free. The balance in the new economy is shifting more toward the free. Open source software is a reflection of that. The free attracts customers and seals relationships. Some big banks, at least judging from their aggression in the ATM war, are clearly having difficulty recognizing this shift.
Banking increasingly is a network business.
And from a raw technology standpoint, banks know networks quite well. They've got the ATM networks down tight. They know how to transfer huge amounts of money all over the globe. But when it comes to customer relationships, the big California banks don't seem to understand networks at all. Banks face intense competition against alternative financial institutions, from discount brokers to mutual fund companies to Internet start-ups.