Free of Understanding

Chris Anderson continues to jot down observations about FREEdom in the wild. His latest post is illustrated by an image of powerlines transmitting the word 'copy' (I guess indicating the transmission of 'free' copies of content over a network). Ironically, this illustration captures one of the major issues which Chris has yet to address: the externalities of free stuff.

Now, I'm quite sure that Chris fully understands this issue, but I do wish he would address it to some degree in his musings as he builds up to the book. I'm also quite open to the idea that Chris' concept of 'free' is quite different from mine and may somehow elegantly sidestep this issue (though this post does equate specifically cost with value, thus hinting that externalities - which are a cost - will be addressed even though the post in question somehow fails to). That being said, the idea of 'free' enterprise productivity tools is so paradoxical as to be almost ridiculous. Just as you can't print money, you can't simply make costs evaporate. You can certainly move those costs around a little.

Comments

[Chris Anderson]

Matthew,

Before you conclude that I'm an idiot, check out the cover story on FREE coming out in a week's time in Wired. I haven't put everything there is to be said on this subject in my blog (yet), but I think you'll find the issues you raise are pretty fully addressed in the article.

THEN you can conclude I'm an idiot (or not) ;-)

Chris