Better than free
Kevin Kelly, of Cool Tools fame, wrote a very thoughtful article on economic issues related to funding intellectual work in an age of free digital content. The basic question is, “what’s worth paying for when copies are free?” His answers (but read the whole article here) involve a set of “generative” qualities that add quality to free copies:
1. Immediacy (and parenthetically, it’s always seemed to me that the New York Times got it precisely wrong when they made their current information free, but charged for old stuff). I think if they charged for immediate access to information you could get free access to in a few hours, they’d have a market.
2. Personalization (customized for your needs, interests, biases).
3. Interpretation (including support).
4. Authenticity (some kind of guarantee that it’s bug-free).
5. Accessibiilty (getting someone else to maintain and back up information, so that you can just access it when and how you want it).
6. Embodiment (i.e., getting it on a t-shirt or framed).
7. Patronage (the opportunity to pay people you support).
8. Findability.
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