Framing – Free: The Future of a Radical Price

I’m fascinated by the prospects of which direction the economics of the Internet will take, especially news media.  We’ve seen online newspapers provide completely free content, then attempt at least a partial pay system, then return to a wholly free system.  We’ve seen Napster – which everyone used – followed by Itunes.  A free system accepted as the norm followed by a pay system as the norm.  Which direction are we headed?  Why is it that some electronic books sold by Amazon for their revolutionary Kindles are more expensive than print versions which require so much additional manpower and lets not forget the costs of physical distribution.

Will we see a system in which we no longer use credit cards but rather our smart phones with our financial information encoded within to pay for products and services?  Will we all have to pay a measly $.50 to have access to a full single issue of the New York Times?  An issue which now becomes undoubtedly one’s own?

Are the economic problems of our time a result of the massive shift we’re witnessing right now?  When things settle and businesses find their way to conduct business via the Internet profitably, can we expect a more stable economy?  Perhaps a return to the proliferation of work seen during the decades of the 60s through the 90s?