Why do we pay for free stuff?
Steve
Excerpts from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html
The internet is a copy machine. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions
of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.
Our wealth sits upon a very large device that copies promiscuously and
constantly.
Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling
precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine
the established order. How does one make money selling free copies?
When copies are super abundant, they become worthless, and stuff which
can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable. When copies are free, you
need to sell things which cannot be copied.
What can't be copied?
Trust cannot be copied. You can't purchase it. Trust must be earned
over time. It cannot be downloaded or faked (at least not for long).
If everything else is equal, you'll always prefer to deal with someone
you trust. Trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a
copy-saturated world.
There are a number of other qualities similar to trust that are
difficult to copy, and thus become valuable in this network economy.
We can start with a simple user question - why would we ever pay for
anything that we could get for free? When anyone buys a version of
something they could get for free, what are they purchasing?
I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we
pay for something that could be free.
In a real sense, these are eight things that are better than free.
Eight uncopyable values. I call them "generatives." A generative value
is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated,
nurtured. A generative cannot be copied, cloned, faked, replicated,
counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over
time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free
copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.
The Eight Generatives
1. Immediacy. Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever
you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is
released or produced by its creators is a generative asset.
2. Personalization. Personalization requires an ongoing conversation
between the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user.
It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming.
You can't copy the personalization that a relationship represents.
3. Interpretation. As the old joke goes - software free, manual
$10,000. But it's no joke. I suspect a lot of genetic information will
go this route. Right now getting your copy of your DNA is very
expensive, but soon it won't be. In fact, pharmaceutical companies
will PAY you to get your genes sequence. The copy of your sequence
will be free, but the interpretation of what it means, what you can do
about it, and how to use it, will be expensive.
4. Authenticity. You might be able to grab a key software
application for free, but even if you don't need a manual, you might
like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You'll pay
for authenticity. Graphic reproductions such as photographs and
lithographs often come with the artist's stamp of authenticity - a
signature - to raise the price of the copy.
5. Accessibility. Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your
things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed
up. Many people will be happy to have others tend our possessions by
subscribing to them. We'll pay Acme Digital Warehouse to serve us any
musical tune in the world, when and where we want it. Ditto for books
and blogs. Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers
us our desires. The fact that most of this material will be available
free, if we want to tend it, back it up, keep adding to it, and
organize it, will be less and less appealing as time goes on.
6. Embodiment. At its core the digital copy is without a body. You
can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps
you'd like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? What
about dwelling in your favorite (free) game with 35 others in the same
room? There is no end to greater embodiment. Nothing gets embodied as
much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is
free - the bodily performance is expensive.
7. Patronage. It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators.
Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the
tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. But
they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount, and
they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators. The
elusive, intangible connection that flows between appreciative fans
and the artist is worth something. There are many examples of the
audience paying simply because it feels good.
8. Findability. Whereas the previous generative qualities reside
within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at
a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not
help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it.
No matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen. When
there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films,
millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our
attention - and most of it free - being found is valuable.
These eight qualities require a new skill set. Success in the
free-copy world is not derived from the skills of distribution. The
money in this networked economy does not follow the path of the
copies. Rather it follows the path of attention, and attention has its
own circuits. Maintaining generatives is a lot harder than duplicating
copies in a factory.
--
Even he, to whom most things that most people
would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb,
thought it was pretty smart.
...Douglas Adams
Drop_the_chalupa_RodSpeed
Steve wrote:
> Excerpts from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html
Mindless commie drivel.
RodSpeed, get the Batcar ready!