I'm not really sure, I'm guessing you could get at least a small group of people to come. I'd consider it if it had a high proportion of geeks, seemed well managed, had good infrastructure (things like water rights, proximity to an airport, Amazon service, fiber to the home, good schools, etc), and wasn't too expensive.

I don't think you'd have to make it free - you could probably make a tidy profit off of getting services hooked up and then subdividing the land, and still providing people a better place to go.