More Free
Following up a bit on yesterday’s discussion of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price, I’ve seen some interesting additional commentary from Seth Godin and Tim Lee. Anderson’s own response to Malcolm Gladwell is in some respects not totally responsive, but makes a number of additional points.
To clarify my own position, I think I would say that I basically agree with Anderson that “free is the future.” Where I guess I part ways with him is the sort of exciting up with people business guru tone of the whole thing. I think the Free future will be a very exciting place for people who don’t work in the Free’d sectors of the economy. Personal trainers and veterinarians and interior designers are going to have access to unprecedented consumption possibilities at low cost. But for the actually Free-ified sectors of the economy, the experience is going to be disappointing. Once upon a time, a media business—whether it charged a nominal price for content (newspaper) or not (broadcast television)—could take advantage of massive barriers to entry to generate monopoly rents. That then created not only big money for owners, but also a huge surplus that could be thrown around in all kinds of goofy ways (Roger Cohen informs us that he was once reprimanded for flying business class to South America on the grounds that “The Wall Street Journal flies first class”) that were fun for the key stakeholders in the industry. The same factors that are pushing things toward Free are, I think, basically just making key sectors of the economy less lucrative than they used to be. That’s a good thing, overall, but at the same time there’s no sense in trying to deny that many current stakeholders have every reason to be sad about current trends.
12 Responses to “More Free”
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July 1st, 2009 at 11:43 am
But for the actually Free-ified sectors of the economy, the experience is going to be disappointing.
Not if you’re at the top of the pyramid, like Anderson. Then you can copy and paste a bunch of stuff from Wikipedia, and actually monetize it!
July 1st, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Godin’s response is one of the most pathetic non-responses I’ve ever read. He doesn’t even really attempt to answer Gladwell’s criticisms.
July 1st, 2009 at 12:11 pm
” That’s a good thing, overall, but at the same time there’s no sense in trying to deny that many current stakeholders have every reason to be sad about current trends.”
(my bolding)
Well…
The current stakeholders are not the only ones at risk here.
When local newspapers collapse in Michigan, the ones at risk are not just the folks who work for local newspapers in Michigan. Also, the residents of Michigan who are used to have professionally trained and monetarily supported folks investigating state and local government, as well as local corporate misbehavior, are harmed.
When the film industry suffered a partial collapse upon the introduction of television, the ones at risk were not just the folks who worked for the film industry. The quality of films suffered for a decade or two, and assuming film fulfilled some larger human need, the viewers suffered.
The overwhelmingly popular tendency to see the only folks at risk in transitions like this as “the current stakeholders” is badly mistaken.
July 1st, 2009 at 3:15 pm
The internet is a Black Hole. It swallows up business models whole. What emerges on the other side has been squeezed and misshapen to such a degree that it often bears little resemblance to the original.
In some ways it is a perfect example of Capitalism’s “creative destruction” principle: the efficient must always be givent the freedom to find ways to destroy the inefficient.
The internet has proven very creative in destroying inefficient things. The problem is, the internet also has the capacity to destroy what were previously very efficient business models, and does so all the time. The net result, as always in these matters, the consumer benefits but the consumer also loses his job.
July 1st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
“The internet has proven very creative in destroying inefficient things. The problem is, the internet also has the capacity to destroy what were previously very efficient business models, and does so all the time. The net result, as always in these matters, the consumer benefits but the consumer also loses his job.”
Meh. I’d rewrite this.
All the businesses killed by new technology were efficient before the new technology created a new playing field that left them inefficient.
—–
The real problem here (beyond the ’stakeholders get screwed’ fallout that Matthew was discussing) is that the new playing field may not immediately benefit the public good in some ways.
Craigslist is more efficient than the Detroit News in connecting classified item buyers and sellers. But the demise of the Detroit News is likely to have bad effects for the public good in the local area, as problems in local government and public affairs get less airing to large segments of the public.
The ability to steal music is more efficient than artists signing with corporations who publish the music on media and sell it to consumers. But the demise of money flowing through A&R means less music being made for large segments of the public.
Efficiencies are always good in the abstract, and they are usually good in the specific, but sometimes they way they play out can produce short-term and/or long-term damages to the public good.
July 1st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
“When local newspapers collapse in Michigan, the ones at risk are not just the folks who work for local newspapers in Michigan. Also, the residents of Michigan who are used to have professionally trained and monetarily supported folks investigating state and local government, as well as local corporate misbehavior, are harmed.”
But the newspapers themselves destroyed previous technologies – previous technologies that also had a lot of value to then stakeholders. Local gossip, for instance. People previously got the majority of their news through gossip (or word of mouth). The shift to newspapers wasn’t free: a lot of the drama, excitement, immediacey and colour of politics was removed when the comparatively colorless and neutral newspaper came into existance.
Of course, the newspaper still became the dominant technology even though there are lots of things better about word of mouth.
July 1st, 2009 at 5:39 pm
“But the newspapers themselves destroyed previous technologies – previous technologies that also had a lot of value to then stakeholders.”
Again, my interest in not about “the stakeholders”. It’s about the public good.
The rise of newspapers was an advance for the public good. The demise of newspapers seems almost definitely to be a retreat for the public good in the short-term. The long-term is more difficult to figure, but the short-term can last quite a while.
Disruptive technologies do lots of harm and lots of good. The fall of newspapers seems an example of the harm. In a democracy, an educated populace on public affairs is highly important. And at the state and local level, it seems highly likely that we’re going to move away from an educated populace on public affairs.
July 1st, 2009 at 6:01 pm
[...] more: To clarify my own position, I think I would say that I basically agree with Anderson that “free [...]
July 1st, 2009 at 7:53 pm
The big newspapers and magazines could have joined with the WSJ in forming a subscription only cartel a dozen years ago, but us journalists are such attention whores that their own employees prevented them from doing what was in the journalists’ long run financial interest.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:12 am
[...] more: To clarify my own position, I think I would say that I basically agree with Anderson that “free [...]
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:08 am
I have some comments about the future of newspapers here:
http://noemptywallets.blogspot.com/2009/07/future-of-newspapers-and-free.html
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
[...] the book in the New Yorker. Matthew Yglesias put a post up on the subject and then a second post. Yglesias also links to Seth Godin and Tim Lee, as well as Anderson himself at Wired. Matt Y: Once [...]