The Economics of Free

Wired's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is working on a new book, to be published next year, about the idea of "free" in the old and new economies. Wired is running a long excerpt from the book and some sidebars about the economics of giving away, e.g., CDs and directory assistance. Techdirt has a few quibbles about Anderson's ideas — mostly areas in which he may be shading the argument to sell more books — but mostly buys that the equations of economics continue to work when zeros are plugged in in judicious places.

Comments

Lessig's 'Free Culture' on pirate bay?

[Per Abrahamsen]

Lawrence Lessig has made his Free Culture book available for free. Chris Anderson is not very credible unless he does the same with his book.

Re:Well..

[jalefkowit]

He is giving away the book for free, right?

Actually, yes:

I have embarked on this project not just to sell a book but also to try to explore new models for books. We're going to try to make Free free in every way possible. The audiobook is going to be a free mp3 download. I am not going to promise what we will do, but these are things we are talking about. The e-book can be free. Again, the marginal cost of distributing that is zero. Price follows cost. Why should I charge for the book when it costs me nothing? People who do own the e-books tend to be influential early adopters, exactly who you should be giving the book to.