Oct 14 2010
The Illusion of Free
As the old maxim goes: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. After reading “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” this is more evident than other. Of course, we’re discussing two definitions of the word “free” here. In the traditional sense, free means that you can obtain something with no cost whatsoever. While wonderful for the consumer in theory, this doesn’t exist in the practical world. Anything that is “free” comes with at least a few strings attached. Sure, you can watch a TV show on TV or online, just be prepared to watch a commercial for something else first. Sure, you can get a free book, you just need to buy two more first. As Team America taught us so eloquently: freedom isn’t free.
So is this a good or bad thing? Despite having to deal with obnoxious commercials and other forms of marketing, we’re stilling getting content we want for free right? Well yeah, but usually said content is the bare minimum. If you want to see the whole season of a TV in HD without commercials, you better be prepared to pay for it. Otherwise, be happy with the most recent episode with the same commercial playing in every break. Consumers have two definable traits: they love to get stuff for free, but they hate to be sold things.
While we can go on and on about shifty dealings that big companies do to get our dollars, how does the issue of free affect us as content producers? We can make the greatest content in the world, but it won’t mean too much to us if we don’t get paid for it. Such is the one the central issues of Fincher’s “The Social Network.” After TheFacebook becomes immensely successful, the creators argue about featuring advertising on the site. Saverin, the CFO’s argument: they need some cashflow coming in to the company to keep it growing and earn a profit. Zuckerberg, the creator’s argument: advertising isn’t cool, and featuring any ads would make TheFacebook lose the rare status of “cool.” While Zuckeberg has never cared too much about money, he’s always cared about cool, because its something he’s never had. Once the site loses its “cool”, it can never get it back. So how can this issue be resolved? Well it isn’t really in the movie. Facebook just becomes more popular and is eventually bought by a big company. The issue of advertisements inevitably coming to facebook isn’t addressed in the later scenes. By this point, any tension between “free” and “cool” was irrelevant. If you have access to a million users, you’re going to exploit them, that’s just how these things go. Cool doesn’t matter anymore.
So for those us who aren’t creating the biggest website in the world, how do we resolve the tension between “free” and “cool”? While some might argue ads can be done tastefully, they will always be intrusive in some way or another. So are there any other ways to we can earn revenue from our content? As independent producers, probably not at this point. Until we get to the level of the companies described in the book, we’ll probably still have to rely on third party revenues if we intend to distribute for free. Economics may be intimidating, but its basic components are not hard to grasp. Someone is always losing money and someone is always gaining it. Until there’s someone clever enough to make traditional “free” a reality, we will will have to settle with the practical “free” for now.