Oct 11 2010
Free Framing
1. How has the internet and other digital networks transformed basic economic principles like supply and demand?
2. As digital content producers, how can we make our projects earn revenue for us without being sleazy spammers?
3. Is freedom really free? How do we put a price on digital content which is composed of time/effort?
October 11th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
In Response to Question #3
I think this is a very interesting question and I think there is a simple answer. From my point of view, I feel like we are all really missing the fact that we pay for our online news and entertainment. Unfortunately, it seems that many of us are so well off that we often forgot that the internet and technological tools are a commodity. So although we claim that The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and social networking are all free— they really aren’t. Do we not acknowledge that we pay to utilize the Internet through monthly fees on both home, wireless and mobile tools? So yes, technological tools available online are free- but technology isn’t exactly free. Anderson states that “free” always has hidden costs and comes with strings attached, but different people are paying for these hidden costs. Although Anderson discusses the power of free and how it changes economics, I just felt like some specifics were missing when it came to analyzing the Internet and interactivity as commodity in which many of the other authors have touched on. With that said, I can’t 100% agree with everything Anderson discusses.
The other interesting aspect of this topic focuses on the amount of time and effort put into the Internet, which is considered this “free” economy. The bottom line is: no one is paying us for digital content. Individuals who leak new releases aren’t getting paid anymore than the people telling us how to jailbreak our iPhones. I do not believe there is a perfect answer as to how to effectively and efficiently place a price on digital content— however, I know this has caused a huge transition in business schools in regards to how they teach and present business models. It doesn’t take a business scholar to know that we’re struggling to make profits off of online content. And freedom of speech is finally meeting free resources if you able to gain access to the commodity.
In Chapter 16 “You Get What You Pay For,” Anderson discusses the idea of behind “free means more ads, and that means less privacy.” How true? How relevant? We observe this so much today. My first thought after reading this section lead me to Essence.com’s (www.essence.com) website. There are still ad’s everywhere, which become very distracting along with pop-ups. There is great content that intrigues their audience and they are beyond successful at reaching their targeted audience. However, the excessive number of ads disengages readers but like unless we are paying for it, we can’t complain but so much as free readership. But like Anderson states, because we aren’t directly paying for services and instead advertisers are paying for us— the ad’s will remain.