Better Than Free (2008)

Nitpicking a bit, food for thought for others maybe. Thinking of this mostly from the perspective of artistic works since the author made a reference to those.

> 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 even better, produced — by its creators is a generative asset.

This is assuming the process of creation itself isn't being copied. I can imagine a dystopian future where the process and hence, the product are both free and consequently worthless to the creator.

> It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators.

Been a student most of my life so far, so i think you need to have money before you can act on the desire to reward others. Also in a dystopian world, if everything is free, who has money?

> 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.

Agreed but easy to find means more copies exist. Perhaps it is a delicate balance?

Maybe wealth and copies don't go hand in hand as some, including myself, would like to believe.

Definitely holds up. Recently I listened to an artist/content creator complain about how other creators were copying their work. That's the name of the game now, anything easily copy-able does not have much value in the digital age.

Interesting analysis. I think this is a great manual for how companies should view their value adds, not by gate keeping data, but by providing services that make it easier and better to use that data.