So now we get this Google model for everything and once again all these young Turks are running around like they reinvented the wheel. So we have a plan that essentially says to a writer you give me something for free and I’ll make money with the ads and we’ll see if there is any left over for you.

This my friends is a newspaper business model,the radio and television business model. The written word, the act or show is the honey to attract the circulation or hits if you will which encourages businesses to advertise in the publication or network. However there is a catch, writers and performers have to eat and without them you are left with the hardware, printing press, broadcast station, that silent hum. The only thing sustaining the so called web papers is that they take material from writers who are paid by someone other than them. So they get the news and everyone blogs or blabbers on about someone’s work. This is the stuff that used to happen over cigarettes and coffee at my mom’s kitchen table.

Steve Jobs didn’t go to artists and say gimme. He said I can distribute for less, so lets charge less, build volume and everyone will be happy. Now that is new and no ads were required.

I suppose that Anderson would say (and probably does say in the book) that, right now, the cost of producing and distributing a book hovers well above zero, and so the argument doesn’t quite fit. Which, while true, begs the question of why he didn’t just arrange for the book to be available online for ‘free’ or only for a nominal fee (maybe $2 instead of $18 or whatever for the hard copy).

I gather that at this early stage of “free” theorizing, such pragmatic questions shouldn’t be asked — or can be asked, but can’t be answered…or whatever. The visionaries always seem to get a free pass when it comes to contradiction.

-D