When the WiReD magazine editor and author of the spectacularly successful ‘Long Tail’ book takes a radical approach to promoting his latest book, people like me sit up and listen. This time around, Chris Anderson has put his content where his principles lie, and how! “FREE – The future of a radical price” – his latest tome is currently being offered for Free at Scribd (the site that claims to democratize publishing).
As Chris Anderson says in the prologue, “I’m typing these words on a $250 “netbook” computer, which is the fastest growing new category of laptop. The operating system happens to be a version of free Linux, although it doesn’t matter since I don’t run any programs but the free Firefox Web Browser. I’m not using Microsoft Word, but rather free Google Docs, which has the advantage of making my drafts available to me wherever I am, and I don’t have to worry about backing them up since Google takes care of that for me. Everything else I do on this computer is free, from my email to my Twitter feeds. Even the wireless access is free, thanks to the coffee shop I’m sitting in. And yet, Google is one of the most profitable companies in America, the “Linux ecosystem” is a $30 billion industry, and the coffee shop seems to be selling $3 lattes as fast as they can make them. Therein lies the paradox of Free: People are making lots of money charging nothing. Not nothing for everything, but nothing for enough that we have essentially created an economy as big as a good-sized country around the price of $0.00. How did this happen and where is it going?”
If that doesn’t hook you, nothing ever will! It certainly caught the attention of a certain Mr. Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, Outliers). Who then took it upon himself to take Anderson’s theory apart! Here’s a sample of what he had to say: “Information wants to be free,” Anderson tells us, “in the same way that life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill.” But information can’t actually want anything, can it? Amazon wants the information [from publishers] to be free, because that way Amazon makes more money. Why are the self-interested motives of powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principle?” To read the full piece, go here.
Considered in the light of all that is happening in the online world, both these gentlemen have valid points. I tend to agree (ever so slightly) with Chris Anderson and I find he presents substantial (at least in my estimation) proof that led him to develop on his premise. Or maybe it is just that I like the idealistic way in which he paints the promise of things to come. It seems ideal that information and the means to distribute it, should all prove to be heading down the route when the cost of production is so cheap that access will practically be given away.
But the skeptic in me tells me (as does Gladwell) that there’s no such thing as a free lunch! This is not dissimilar to the ‘razoe and blades’ approach of certain corporation which produce the hardware and offer it for a nominal fee while forcing customers to shell out a premium price for consumable parts. It worked well enough to put Gillette on the Fortune 500 map and even to this day, continues to rake in the moolah for inkjet and laserjet printers.
Coming back to Chris Anderson’s book, you soon realize that it is not-that-free after all. Reading the 274-page book on Scribd (with no download or save option) and squinting through the less-than-optimal display size (even with the zoom and/or the full screen option enabled) is the price one needs to pay! And as of this moment, the book is no longer available to Indian users! (The official explanation given on the link is: ‘Sorry, this content is geographically restricted.’)
You can download pdf from http://ajai.in/2009/07/07/free-full-book-by-chris-anderson-2/
Hey – nice article there, Prashant. I did not expect you’d disagree with Chris’ point of view. Most of the ‘bloggers’ seem to favor the idea of free-world-free-software-free-everything. Nothing left for me to say as you have given an excellent resource in Gladwell’s write up. The corollary holds here – its akin to selling printers cheap and earning through cartridges. It works that ways. Not everything can be free. Not even the information. Absolutely LOVED the example of Genzyme. Demonstrates wonderfully how and where can the information command a price – and to what extent!
I think what the Internet has changed is access to information. Essentially, information has zero duplication cost. Now, if the production costs are negligible too (blogs, homemade videos) – the distribution can be done for free. However, if you have invested heavily in the production (pharmaceuticals) – information is expensive.