The Economics of Free is a conceptual book that contemplates business model innovations related to the drop in storage, bandwidth and other costs associated with the digital age. Referencing the oil business as evidence that Anderson was "wrong" doesn't address the essence of his book. Wired's business model is a good example. As with all organizations, Wired is wrestling through rapidly emerging change (See Collin's recent interview http://www.bryankorourke.com/journal/2009/4/28/jim-collins-were-all-head...). Therefore, is it really fair to rely on Wired's model of today as evidence of Anderson's concepts being flawed ? Most business models and industries are dealing with continual evolution, the ultimate outcome of which is unknown. In fact most, if not all, of Wired's content is online for free already. Additionally, many oil businesses are presently and actively contemplating delivery of value added services to differentiate their commodity offerings using digital technologies - all for free. What the market will ultimate accept and how offerings are priced remains to be seen because Anderson's concepts have yet to make their full impact. Perhaps in 5 years time we might all be in a better position to judge their validity Jim.

I'm not sure there's any "free" content anywhere...someone is paying for it either through advertising, the inconvenience of commercial interruptions or their personal time and effort...It seems to me that the entitled generation expects everything for free. Let's try this thought experiment: how many who expect free content and music, etc. would work 35 hrs. for free? Indie music is signing many more artists these days but those artists are not signing on to simply give their music away. This whole "free content" debate is disheartening to anyone who cares about the quality of content. Institutions that are critical to our country, such as newspapers and magazines, are imploding because they cannot figure out the business model needed to survive. I'll gladly pay for quality content, just as I gladly pay for the music I truly like...

I work for a news content website & I will never pay for online news or editorial content. That's simply the way it is. Any website that switches to a pay-for-content model can kiss my ass goodbye. Slate switches to pay-for-content? Goodbye forever. As soon as such a switch is made it's no longer a matter of wanting to visit the site & read the content, it's a matter of whether I need this content. & I don't need Slate. Something tells me Slate knows this, & that's why it's content remains free. This is from an insider who provides content & an outsider who's been trained by the market to expect everything for free. Anyone trying to convince you that pay-for content is the way to go is a fool. & anyone who disingenuously uses non-website models based on old-world business models to argue for pay-for-content online business models is the biggest fool of all.

This worked as long as there was a robust advertising environment to support it. Now many sites are reduced to taking pennies for AdSense or from ad networks. It's simply not sustainable. 2010 will be the Year of Paid Content. There are many new models springing up. Perhaps enabling the user to decide not Whether or What to pay, but HOW, will ease the transition. Allan Hoving PayCheckr.com

I have to admit, I have been a fan of free my whole life. For consumers, radio is free, network television is free, samples are free, buy one get one free is a staple of modern business. I am inundated with free every day of my life. Granted, most of these free offers incentivise another purchase or are supported by ad revenues. However, I am trying to understand the issue surrounding the free model with respect to digital media. In an age where quality music can be produced in a sound insulated suburban home with a good engineer and a few thousand dollars, why must consumers be soaked for millions just for the privilege of listening? I would think that listening to the music is a means to an end. That end being entering fandom for the band and partaking in other goods/services like concerts, merchandise etc... It seems like the eventual evolution of the industry as evidenced by scores of major musicians and virtually all indie bands. I take issue with likening this model to Netzero, whose service was terribly unreliable and inferior; simply not worth the $0 they charged. This has no parallel to giving infinite goods (digital music) away for free and incentivising other purchases. Internet access is NOT infinite... not even close and not inexpensive to produce. The 'free' was ad-supported which was poorly implemented and contributed to the hate most of us felt for the service back in the 90's. This was a poorly run technical company who failed not because they offered a free service, but because they were horrible at what they tried to do. Take it from a ex-tech support infantryman. Vonage, another poor example, has had multifactorial problems. They have been litigated against by the big boys, cramping their expansion and putting undue pressure on the company. Now that telecoms are in the VoIP biz, Vonage is at a distinct disadvantage. You cannot draw causation because of their 'freemium' model (if you can actually call it that), as they had innumerable technical issues surrounding their pioneering effort in VoIP. They were one of the very first companies to offer this service and had numerous obstacles that cost them huge monetarily. Plus, they most certainly are not giving away an infinite service for free. In fact, they charge quite a bit for a service that you can get through other VoIP channels for much cheaper, or free. We are also back to the finite nature of internet access. Maintenance of hardware, support staff, etc... is simply not analogous to digital media. Once a song, a movie, a magazine, a book is created. It exists in perpetuity with no maintenance required. Very different. I won't go into the big oil, big pharma, law, examples. They are antiquated representations of giving away finite goods to try to sell a less-finite premium good or to stimulate participation in a service. They simply have no correlation to distributing 50,000 copies of a song for free. Maybe that one song cost $1000 or even $5000 to produce. But that song will last forever and those 50,000 could multiply many fold, greatly increasing the chance of making money from finite goods. If it doesn't... well you need to write a better song or find another venue to distribute. This is very unlike a toaster, plate or razor. Free is working like gangbusters for musicians who are free of the shackles of the big industry. It would do so within the industry if they weren't so egocentric and money hungry. Bands are being signed by indie labels at a faster rate now than ever. More music is being produced, and not force fed to consumers by the industry. It is where human creativity must go. Eventually this sort of distribution will be par for movies, television and literature. It is rapidly becoming so. The artists need to adapt to the needs of the consumer and treat them as a true fan of their work, not treat them as if they are bringing down the creative world around our ears. I'm a scientist in Texas and always attend SXSW. There is no better place to see how the music, movie, and software industry is evolving. Amazing full length moves are made on a shoestring budget, far surpassing almost all of the the eyecandy junk we see in the major theaters. Music is as complex and spans multiple genres... it's just free now... and all the better for it. I suggest you find an example where a musician or director or author has failed or lost popularity because their infinite product was given away for free. Artists fail because they lose their fans, not because they can't afford to eat. This is not to say they there are not flaws in the free model. It just requires the industries that are hugely affected by the digital revolution to reinvent themselves to a degree. Artists should get paid for their performance, not simply for a performance that was 15 years ago. I have long advocated that the money spent on passive entertainment (CD music, movies, etc) be spent on active entertainment such as concerts and theater. Watch a movie for free, but pay for a signed copy or a poster, or pay for the movie theater experience. Movies are making more money now then ever, even though you can get them online for free very easily. I also suggest you find a parallel that more closely resembles the true nature of the digital age and not rely on very dated and irrelevant examples to prove a seemingly nonexistent point... that a business model that incorporates free infinite goods is doomed to fail.

Unfortunely, this article ignores what Anderson actually says. I'm no fan of his theories, and think they have some gaping holes in them (http://industry.bnet.com/technology/1000131/wagging-the-long-tail-what-d...), but if you're going to levy criticism, it should be fair. Anderson says that companies should give away some things for free and then have premium levels that bring in revenue. In Wired's case, you could argue that the web site is the freebie and the paper is the premium. A closer analysis would have been more interesting. Wired has been adding paid subscribers but doing badly with advertising. Trying to understand what that is happening would have been worth the space. But criticizing him for not doing something that technically he is doing is a waste of time. Now, it might have been interesting to ask whether he makes even parts of his books available online - I don't think he does, though I could be wrong. That might have been more to the point. And, by the way, the dynamic in publishing is that advertisers strongly prefer paid subscriptions, because they usually translate into more responsive subjects, so simply giving away copies of Wired wouldn't necessarily do Conde Nast any good aside from the demographic issues.