I haven't been able to get my hands on a review copy of Chris Anderson's new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, so I'll pass on making any commentary about its contents, but I do want to point something out that I found interesting in Mike Masnick's review of the book at Techdirt.
Mike discusses the various ways in which "free" can be sustainable, including bundling, cross-subsidizing, and other typical solutions to goods with a declining marginal cost. But he also mentions non-monetary payment, which Anderson apparently talks about a bit in the book:
Fair enough.
But what I found interesting is that at the end of the post, Mike addresses the accusations of plagiarism that have swirled around the book and concludes, "If Chris can take the works of others and make it into something more valuable, aren't we all better off because of it?" We very well may be.
But even if building on someone else's work is a net good and carries a price tag of $0.00, there is a customary form of non-monetary payment in formal writing --the kind of payment that is critical to Mike's and Anderson's arguments. That payment is proper attribution. Academics have standardized formats for attribution; bloggers offer "hat tips" to attribute sources and ideas; and twitterers "retweet" clever or insightful comments to credit the author: attribution is the "transactional lubricant" that rewards good ideas in written work.
Mike says he "would have preferred it if that such mistakes in attribution did not happen, mainly because it's a distraction, but the issue is a minor one." He also says, "I don't think it takes away from the quality of the overall work at all."
But the very opposite should be true if we accept the idea that non-monetary payment is the best way to compensate authors for the use of their words and ideas. The book is certainly still valuable if for no other reason than that it sheds light on many of the difficult business decisions that face content creators, but it should definitely weigh in our assessment that the author doesn't recognize a real-world application of the very concept he espouses.
Mike discusses the various ways in which "free" can be sustainable, including bundling, cross-subsidizing, and other typical solutions to goods with a declining marginal cost. But he also mentions non-monetary payment, which Anderson apparently talks about a bit in the book:
You can pay people to write -- just as Encyclopaedia Britannica does. Or you can get other people to write for non-monetary rewards -- as Wikipedia does. The latter is a lot more efficient a solution, and the difference in productivity and output is quite evident. It's not saying that there is no business in paying people to write, but it's a very different business than the indirect business model, and it's the economic efficiencies that come into play.
Money, at times, is a transactional lubricant. It helps us make transactions faster than bartering three pigs for two trees, a goat and a bushel of corn. At other times, though, money can be friction. It can limit transactional effectiveness by acting as a kind of crutch. That's where non-monetary benefits can suffice (or do a much better job) in rewarding people for their actions. In those scenarios money gets in the way and actually makes a transaction less efficient.
Fair enough.
But what I found interesting is that at the end of the post, Mike addresses the accusations of plagiarism that have swirled around the book and concludes, "If Chris can take the works of others and make it into something more valuable, aren't we all better off because of it?" We very well may be.
But even if building on someone else's work is a net good and carries a price tag of $0.00, there is a customary form of non-monetary payment in formal writing --the kind of payment that is critical to Mike's and Anderson's arguments. That payment is proper attribution. Academics have standardized formats for attribution; bloggers offer "hat tips" to attribute sources and ideas; and twitterers "retweet" clever or insightful comments to credit the author: attribution is the "transactional lubricant" that rewards good ideas in written work.
Mike says he "would have preferred it if that such mistakes in attribution did not happen, mainly because it's a distraction, but the issue is a minor one." He also says, "I don't think it takes away from the quality of the overall work at all."
But the very opposite should be true if we accept the idea that non-monetary payment is the best way to compensate authors for the use of their words and ideas. The book is certainly still valuable if for no other reason than that it sheds light on many of the difficult business decisions that face content creators, but it should definitely weigh in our assessment that the author doesn't recognize a real-world application of the very concept he espouses.
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