Free is great, but who’s going to pay for it?

Lucy: Good point. Thought it's not always the content creator who's getting the money. Unlike HBO which collects a huge percentage of your cable bill via Comcast or whoever, the NY Times is not getting paid by the same company's Internet services. So you may be paying for broadband, but the broadband supplier, while paying HBO is not paying the news services. Will that become a new model? Probably not. For sure there will have to be some means of generating revenue for the likes of the Times, or it will be impossible to continue to provide the same level of quality. But I'm not sure if it will be the HBO model. Don't forgot, HBO, in the early days, was the reason for getting cable. You'd have broadband with or without the NY Times. Yes?

I am not sure that we aren't paying for this. Frankly if you look at media spend per person, include TV licenses, cable fees, laptops, broadband,mobile phone bills, etc, each of us is spending a great deal more on media than we have historically. Gone are the days of a 25 cent newspaper that would keep a family informed. Now we have a phone or 2 per person + computers + TV... each of which cost more than a newspaper. I think we may find that media providers start to create content, the same way we have with the cable channels. Think HBO (HBO which used to be a pipe found itself producing made for TV movies and then the hit TV shows, Sex and the City anyone?) and Sky and....

George: Great reminder exactly how new all of this is. East to forget when we're all so used to it. From all the comments one thing is clear: there is no consensus. So I guess we'll have to see how it all plays out.

Good encapsulation Edward. Interesting to note, however, that what you recieved for free was the conversation around free. And haven't we always given those away? With the web, however, we are privy to a lot great conversations. There's no doubt that the web and the "free" content is disrupting the business models of traditional media. But it's silly to think that free is what the future is going to be. We're at the very beginning of web communications and at the stage were it is all very chaotic - and there are no rules set in stone. It's great that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube provide their services for free - but so far they are unprofitable. Will they start charging fees at some point? Maybe. Can the New York Timess and other newspapers continue to give away all their content? Who knows? All of this is fluid and moving so quickly. In 2-3 years, we might all be paying for content for each post and article read. Or we might not. At least it is going to be fascinating to watch. .-= George F. Snell III´s last blog ..How the Pitch Has Changed =-.

Information always wants to be free. @Brandon. Yeah, I do expect people to give away their knowledge for free. Not all of it of course, but its already happening. Take this blog and this discussion for example. No one is going to start charging for this. Information is only as valuable as what it leads you to. The application of that information is where the money needs to be made. Of course, alternate delivery models of information (like Anderson's hard copy is not free, but its on Scribd) is a good area to explore where people find value. A very good and difficult question, but trying to harness information and make us pay for it, I don't think is sustainable.

John: Thanks. Had heard via Anderson that this would happen. Based on his theory this is a strategy to sell more hard books. He's hoping the buzz will generate more attention and make the book more desirable. Otherwise there would be no real book. Just the digital version, right?

I just found out the that entire version of Chris Anderson's book Free, is available for free on scibd.com. How's that for putting your money where your mouth is? http://www.scribd.com/doc/17135767/FREE-full-book-by-Chris-Anderson .-= John Bardos´s last blog ..Travel, Lifestyle Design and Personal Development Links =-.

I take Seth's points, but I'm not sure Lonely Planet will go belly up with this strategy. It's only going to help them sell more guidebooks. And to your point: with all of the channels now available to us as consumers because of the explosion of the digital medium, it encourages us all to be more entrepreneurial, no? I'm no Chris Anderson disciple, but I think that he's on to something. I just don't think that the model has fully emerged yet, and so trial and error (and entrepreneurial ventures) are encouraged. There will likely be very few who emerge as the leaders, but some are likely to be upstarts who will take the place of the current establishment. It will be fun to watch.

There is a model that Lonely Planet is trying out where it acts as an aggregator, but shares revenue with its contributors. Essentially, travel writers with blogs can push their RSS feeds through the Lonely Planet blogging platform, and LP will share the Google AdSense revenue generated on those pages where the bloggers' articles appear on the Lonely Planet site. If this works, it's a harbinger for a model in which independent content is appropriated through some form of contract, and though the readers get it for free, there's a revenue sharing model going on behind the scenes. Lonely Planet uses it position in the travel category to attract large audiences, as well as independent bloggers who have content that those audiences want. It's a win:win:win scenario--at least for the moment--because LP pays its contributors in trade; the contributors get more validation and credibility appearing beneath the Lonely Planet moniker; and the readers get an abundance of content. I think that answers your question in the affirmative: content creators will give it away if they can make money in other ways. There needs to be a shift away from the traditional media models, first. Lonely Planet: Working with Bloggers: http://is.gd/1pYJw

Thanks for another great post. I think the key issue of the free debate is the level of competition. If it is difficult for others to do than you can charge a premium. That difficulty can arise from new technologies or ideas that haven't disseminated widely yet, like professional quality animated movies. It can also come from a celebrity monopoly. People will pay for a connection to famous people in the form of books, posters and other memorabilia. It also is connected to production costs like you mentioned. Cars are not going to be free any time soon. Online, there is increasing competition with zero marginal costs of production and distribution. That means that most of what is selling now, will be given away in the future just to try to gain attention. All of those $30 dollar ebooks will start to be free and sites will charge for membership programs, conferences, etc. I believe all information will trend to free in the near future. People will start to pay for real connections and contact with real people. It is already starting with bands making money from concerts and merchandise, but giving away the songs. Magazines will be free, but they will make their money from conferences, consulting and ads. .-= John Bardos´s last blog ..Travel, Lifestyle Design and Personal Development Links =-.

My views on this were colored by an Atlantic piece in the current issue, which talks about how The Economist is having a banner year while the news-centric weeklies wither. Net: If it's digital, free is the new default. Exceptions will meet 3 conditions: 1. A total price - $ + hassle - less than the total value, 2. A seller with the courage to charge that price, 3. A buyer with the willingness to pay it. .-= Michael Troiano (@miketrap)´s last blog ..Sustainable Social Marketing =-.

Two thoughts: 1) "Free" is the ultimate deflationary spiral. Deflationary spiral = The Great Depression. 2) If this is now a "knowledge economy", then my most valuable asset is my knowledge and creativity. You expect people to give away their most valuable asset for free?

"Free" is simply the advertising-supported mass media model shifted online, and isn't viable because it's dependent on commodified and/or hobbyist content that no one would ever pay for. It's as flawed a concept as Long Tail was, and Gladwell decimated it in his review. .-= Guy LeCharles Gonzalez´s last blog ..Free is wrong for writers; Freemium might not be =-.

Eventually "free" online content will take its place beside library books and rabbit-ear antennas and be the option left to the poor or the thrifty. The middle class will have disposable income available to pay for better, faster content, and media providers will deliver it at whatever price the market will bear.

Godin and Gladwell have to give something away for free. They need to maintain that bit of street cred and the viral nature to their content. This way they can leverage these "free things" into far more lucrative speaking and book deals. .-= Stuart Foster´s last blog ..The Agency as A Community =-.

Check out Anderson's reply to Gladwell, http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2009/06/dear-malcolm-why-so-threatened.html Anderson argues that you can get people to write for free because they get a kick out of being published and read by many readers. That's a great way to put together anthologies of terrible poetry and local newspapers that struggle to support a basic editorial team. It's not, in my estimation, a good way of nurturing talent and producing high quality work. Thankfully, There will always be people who turn up their nose at the idea of getting something for free. We can count on them to continue to pay for quality, service, and the privilege to identify with something of great value. No matter how many companies go belly up trying to give their product away to attract eyeballs (Didn't we discuss this right before the dot com bust?) I think we'll continue to see businesses that charge a fair price for a great product/service and succeed. .-= Seth Simonds´s last blog ..5 Reasons Twitter Direct Messages Are Useless =-.

Free is here to stay regardless of whether we like it or not. Entire music, tv, and movie catalogs are all "freely"/illegally available online so why pay for them? Moral arguments don't really work here. Most people under 30 don't care about large corporations making money...and figure they are getting ripped off enough. We're stuck in spec work mode whether we like it or not, so we should get fantastic at describing "What we are going to do and what the results could be" vs. "The How". How do you circumvent this avalanche of free on the business world? Use it to your advantage. Spread and seed viral content in the form of information and ideas. Also leverage communities to gain insight into their collective thought power. Find new business models like Trent Reznor's most recent album (pay what you want for a download...he ended up making a killing). People will pay for your services once you reach a certain level. The key is getting to that level without becoming broke first ;). .-= Stuart Foster´s last blog ..Salacious Saturday =-.