the big lie about free, from the long tail blog, sheryl crow speaks up
Here’s more insight into “how do I make money on the internet?” From Chris Anderson’s Long Tail blog.
Whether it’s pop stars or Wall Street analysts, the biggest misconception of free is that no cost = no value. For instance, this today from Silicon Alley Insider:
“Whether it’s software, patents, movies, or music, as a planet, we have decided that things that exist only in the form of atoms, or are not offered as a service, have no value.”
Or this, from Sheryl Crow in last weekend’s New York Times magazine:
“(Crow) I’m sad that people feel like music should be free, that the work that we do is not valued. (Journalist) - Don’t you feel valued enough? (Crow) It’s more about consciousness. When music comes free by way of friends burning CDs, there’s not that understanding of the work that goes into the making of an album.”
Spot the error? It’s that the only way to measure value is with money. Of course the Web is built mostly on two non-monetary economies, attention (traffic) and reputation (links), both of which benefit hugely from free content and services. And it’s a pretty simple matter to convert from either of those two currencies into cash, as a glance at Google balance sheet makes clear. In a recent post, we listed dozens of business model built on free. All of them are based on the notion that free stuff does have value and the way we measure that is in the time people spend with them. Do I actually need to remind Wall Street analysts that time is money?
Posted by Chris Anderson
February 19th, 2008 at 6:52 am
What REALLY cracks me up about the hypocrisy of the music industry–especially when comparing “free” models with for-pay ones is that massive, 400-pound gorilla called TELEVISION. You can still watch Saturday Night Live over the airwaves, for free.
I don’t hear any artists complaining that people are stealing their music every time you watch them performing on Letterman, Leno, etc…yet just like on the old devil Internet, that music is being blasted into millions of homes with no compensation on a per-unit basis to the artist for the listener’s enjoyment. And nobody EVER buys a song when they can hear it for free, we all KNOW that because the RIAA told us so.
Silly bastards. Somebody call the RIAA and quick–we got a clear case of music piracy goin’ on in every neighborhood bar that’s tuned in to the wrong channel when those bands are plinking away between wildly unfunny sketches and monologues.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:14 am
[...] My post about musicians and the concept of “free” music on the internet is now followed here by news of an actual free book online, as in giving it away for free. Chris Anderson wrote on his blog about how Oprah Winfrey gave away Suze Orman’s book “Women and Money.” the interesting point to this PR piece (because, really, that’s what it was) is that after the giveaway the book leapt to the top of the Amazon SALES chart…see below. [...]