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The End of Free
The Atlantic has up an insightful piece from its print edition called Closing the Digital Frontier. Michael Hirschorn takes readers through a jaundiced version of the familiar story of the rise and dominance of the "Information wants to be free" meme, then claims that the era of freedom is now over. "...the phrase Information wants to be free... became perhaps the most powerful meme of the past quarter century; so powerful, in fact, that multibillion-dollar corporations destroyed their own businesses at its altar. ... But now, it seems, things are changing all over again. The shift of the digital frontier from the Web, where the browser ruled supreme, to the smart phone, where the app and the pricing plan now hold sway, signals a radical shift from openness to a degree of closed-ness that would have been remarkable even before 1995. ... It’s far from a given that this shift will generate the kinds of revenue media companies are used to: for under-30s whelped on free content, the prospect of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars yearly for print, audio, and video (on expensive new devices that require paying AT&T $30 a month) is not going to be an easy sell. Yet lack of uptake by young people will hardly stop the rush to apps. There’s too much potential upside."
The open-source mentality, in theory if not always in practice, proved useful for the tech and Internet worlds. Facebook and Twitter achieved massive scale quickly by creating an open system accessible to outside developers, though that openness is at times more about branding than anything else—as Twitter’s fellow travelers are now finding out.
As Diaspora and a number of other projects are illustrating, Facebook is far from openness. The API, in my opinion, is little more than a glimpse of what actually goes on inside the behemoth that knows all.
This article seems to be spot on at times and just completely at odds with how I see things at others like:
Even so, Google still needs for the Web, however it’s accessed, to remain central—because without contextual search advertising, Google ceases to matter. Smart phones in general, and the iPad more pointedly, are not driven by search.
(emphasis mine) How incredibly shortsighted. During the World Cup game yesterday, I used my smart phone to search for no less than five pieces of information. And what are iAds? Nothing more than a contextual advertising model based on what you've downloaded as I see it. Sounds awfully similar to Google's model.
Now, instead of farmers versus ranchers, we have Apple versus Google. In retrospect, for all the talk of an unencumbered sphere, of a unified planetary soul, the colonization and exploitation of the Web was a foregone conclusion. The only question now is who will own it.
That's not the only question, it's merely the most monetarily important. I can think of tons of questions to go with your analogy. Who are the Native Americans now? Will one "owner" arise or can multiple coexist like the farmers and ranchers? How much will the government intervene and when? After this is all hashed out will there ever be peace? When it's all said and done, what's the next frontier that will be fought over for profit or will there ever be another one?
My work here is dung.
"Yet lack of uptake by young people will hardly stop the rush to apps. There’s too much potential upside."
Eh? I thought the entire drive behind the iphone and the appstore is young people... without them apple wouldnt be making money hand over fist, and not everyone and their grandma would be building apps to 'get rich quick'TM
If young people didnt care about apps, no one would make them, since there wouldnt be any benefit to doing so at all.
People, what a bunch of bastards
expensive new devices that require paying AT&T $30 a month
Wait, $30 a month for Internet service on a $300 phone or $600 tablet? Yeah, that's real steep, as opposed to, say, $30 a month for AOL on a $1,500 Windows 95 PC a decade or so ago.
The devices are actually a heck of a lot cheaper now than they were when the Internet took off. They're more capable and easier to use, too. Access is no more expensive, and it's wireless. Look for the cost - of both the devices and bandwidth - to continue to decline over time. This will help users to afford quite a bit of content, in the same way folks who cancel their cable TV can afford a Netflix subscription and a substantial number of downloads from iTunes or Amazon and still end up money ahead (and see exactly what they want to see when they want to see it).
Smart phones in general, and the iPad more pointedly, are not driven by search.
I use my iPhone primarily for searching Google -- that's probably what I most use it for. If I'm watching a movie, reading a book, talking to someone, and I want to know some bit of information about the topic, I Google it on my phone and then view the relevant content in the browser. Of course, there is an app for that, but why would I want to install a dozen different applications (IMDB, Wikipedia etc.) when I can Google it and get the results on one page. Google is pretty good at providing what I need. I have no doubt, however, that other people use these individual apps to find the information they need. I guess it's a matter of preference.
Eh? I thought the entire drive behind the iphone and the appstore is young people... without them apple wouldnt be making money hand over fist, and not everyone and their grandma would be building apps to 'get rich quick'TM
If young people didnt care about apps, no one would make them, since there wouldnt be any benefit to doing so at all.
You must have just skimmed the paragraph preceding your quote. The author says
They are operating on the largely correct assumption that people will be more likely to pay for consumer-friendly apps via the iPad, and a multitude of competing devices due out this year, than they are to subscribe to the same old kludgy Web site they have been using freely for years.
The author is making the distinct assumption that anyone under 30 years of age enjoyed or enjoys free content and therefore sees no reason to use Netflix or pay for an iPhone app. I don't know what the actual numbers are and I wish the author had included a lot more citations but the assumption is that young people pay less for applications in the mobile environment. I think that's a safe assumption just based on how much income they usually have compared to people over 30. The other assumption is that once young people enjoy free media via filesharing, they are unwilling to pay for that content via Netflix, Amazon or iTunes. I don't think that's universally true although there may be a small percentage that hold that mentality -- whether it be through an idealism or just lack of money to spend.
My work here is dung.
It seems to me that this article is completely based around the iPhone and the AT&T data plan subscriptions. Does this guy forget that desktops/notebooks will still outnumber smartphones 20k/1? Almost everyone that owns a "Smartphone" owns at least 1 (if not more) expensive desktop/notebook computers that are connecting to the internet through the cable company. Also, I get the feeling that the smartphone subscription model might just be a re-hash of what happened in the early days of the AOL-style dial-up internet. Maybe things will start up this way and open up into much more free content and services as the market grows....just like the original internet did. Horrible article.
If you want to know why the "Information wants to be free" attitude is dying, it is because the Internet has been taken over by business interests; the original network of academics and hackers is just a tiny fraction of what the Internet has now become. Most of the people on the Internet have no interest in freedom, they just want to go to some large business' website and do whatever it is that they do there.
Palm trees and 8
You can have the source.
http://meego.com/downloads
What's happening in fact is the proprietary mobile telcos are under pressure from all directions. Google and even more significantly, Nokia. Apple.... yeah... well...
The Internet is still there. The PC is still there. You now have all that moving mobile. It's more, not less.
Deleted
Every single media provider who started to charge for content has lost out. New York Times is a great example. They've had to reduce prices again and again and again and still have trouble.
The second a news story is out, someone reproduces it. It's no longer about content ownership, it's who can get it out, correct and in a format people like FIRST.
Look at music... who won that one? Itunes. They got it out in a method and format faster and better than anyone. Now... admittedly there might have been better services but they didn't offer the library that itunes can. (I hate itunes before anyone passes judgment).
What the market is proving is that people have a threshold for payment on content. The majority of us it's around $10 for movies (that's when sales peak in numbers other than first release) on DVD's, for music it's around $15 for a full CD, 75 to 99 cents for an individual song... and so on. News media, it's 0. There are a small few of us that then replicate this news (to the media companies horror) to the wide audiences. The author things this will stop... and of course has no true understanding of the market.
Information is easier to share than at any other point in history. News is replicated and spread in seconds now, and people, not just the young kids, are used to it for FREE. The only way this "may" be possible is if every single news media group put up walls at the same time... AND noone found a way to bypass this. It's just not feasible.
The most impact this can possible have is a lag in news release in the hours. It's like the RIAA... it's an antiquated business model that doesn't work anymore. The times have changed so that content en masse is no longer valuable, just the content itself. Good news, strong stories... well written... that's what matters now.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Instead of this piece of fluff (which should have been titled "The End of Freedom"), it's better to re-read The Right to Read by RMS: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html. He saw this coming back in 1997.
The shift of the digital frontier from the Web, where the browser ruled supreme, to the smart phone, where the app and the pricing plan now hold
The article confuses apps, Internet connections, with paying for media. On the desktop, it's long been the case that people pay for software (despite the useful presence of free software). And people pay for their Internet connection.
Similarly with phones - people pay for applications, they pay for their connection.
And the problem on the desktop isn't that people are unwilling to pay for media, it's that it often isn't available. Can I get TV on demand online for a charge? Not as far as I know in the UK. So I've no doubt that people will pay money for an app that gives them TV on a phone, but they would do so on the desktop too.
Where pay-for media is struggling is news. Are people more like to pay to read a newspaper on their 5800 than on their Intel Windows PC?
They are operating on the largely correct assumption that people will be more likely to pay for consumer-friendly apps via the iPad, and a multitude of competing devices due out this year
Ah yes, a multitude of computing devices (laptops, netbooks, tablets, PMPs, phones), but let's give the obligitary product placement to the Ipad. Do we really think that most people will be walking around with an Ipad? And are netbook users etc going to start paying for content?
And with Apple in the driver's seat
Hah. Thankfully - given the article's valid concerns about their closed policy - this isn't remotely true when we look in terms of things like market share. Though no doubt I predict plenty of replies arguing until they're blue in the face that they are (or redefining market share to use some arbitrary criteria where they are first).
Twitter, like other recent-vintage social networks, is barely bothering with its Web site; its smart-phone app is more fully featured. The independent TweetDeck, which collates feeds across multiple social networks, is not browser-based.
This sort of thing is hardly new, nor necessarily a bad thing. Years ago, people used Usenet clients. Many people still use email clients. Sites like LiveJournal have downloadable clients for desktop platforms. It goes without saying that the software versions are more featured - otherwise what would be the point of them. We didn't have hip names for them like "apps", but it's the same thing, long before people started using their phones.
But again, the article is conflating different issues - the technology (website versus software) with the idea of free content. Is anyone going to pay to read Twitter feeds, despite its use of apps?
If you go back to the actual quote,
http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/IWtbF.html
cue twenty-five years later, the first part of the quote being widely forgotten, and an army of too-smart-for-you opionators attacking their own mis-quote using the original quote's argument as their justification for why it is wrong.
It really makes you wonder what the non-populistized seventeen people later word of mouth versions of the original western religious texts were actually trying to say..
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
That a lot of "Free" stuff also turns out to be crap. Therefore the hidden cost is the time it takes in sorting out the good free stuff from the crap. With payware certain standards are expected - or even enforced by third parties (ie an app store). In cases where some crapware does find its way into that third party store, usually there is someone to complain to and the crapware is removed quickly.
It's the old argument of "I can't be bothered to do it myself". It's why we have politicians. It's why we have religions and "gods". Because we prefer to have 'someone else' to delegate certain fears and worries to (even if that 'someone else' turns out to be corrupt in the case of politicians and clerics, or even non-existent in the case of gods). Humans are funny that way.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Apparently, the "consumers" are like grass: just an infinite [1] supply of fodder to be exploited, with all the decisions being made for us up the food chain.
[1] I live in the West, and see on a regular basis how infinite that "sea of grass" really wasn't.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Disclaimer: I havent RTFA yet, and sometimes the summaries don't accurately reflact their FAs. But from the summary, TFA seems particularly clueless. First, "Information wants to be free" is IMO clueless in itself. Information doesn't want to be free any more than your doorknob wants to be free. You could as easily say "Information wants to be paid for". But when information isn't free, neither are you.
Second, "The shift of the digital frontier from the Web, where the browser ruled supreme, to the smart phone, where the app and the pricing plan now hold sway" is just as clueless. The internet is the internet, whether you're accessing it from your phone or your PC. Few have 4G smartphones. Mine isn't 4G, but it will access the internet, and guess what? There are tons of free apps for it. And an iPhone is 4G, but 4G isn't iPhone any more than a four legged animal is a dog. Apple has always been a walled garden, and that's how Apple customers like it. But most of us aren't Apple customers.
It's far from a given that this shift will generate the kinds of revenue media companies are used to
Who gives two shits whether or not media companies get revenue? I don't, and neither should anyone not invested in media company stock. I'm sick of the corporate whores and the corporate media they own turning the world into a bunch of money worshiping greedheads who believe "free=worthless". The best things in life are free: Sunsets, air, rain, FOSS, indie music, walking hand in hand with your S.O., playing catch with your grandchild, etc. Nothing you can buy holds a candle to any of these. Windows is far inferior to Linux, which isn't only free as in beer but gives one true computing freedom.
And I find it fascinating that the corporate media usually refuses to even mention FOSS. We nerds are the only ones who know about Linux; when I mention to normal people that they can replace Windows with an OS that costs nothing and is free from viruses, and there is an office suite that is likewise free, and free media playes that are superior to WiMP, they're astounded.
Now to a response to your comment about "The only question now is who will own" the web, personally I think the question is ludicrously meaningless, not important. Nobody owns it, and nobody will. It's free.
I look forward to free internet access for all, free of corporate robber barons and gatekeeprs, a mesh network where everyone opens up access to everyone else. It's doable and should be done, and I think we here at slashdot are the ones to start it. As to "the government", which government? It's a world wide web, not an American corporate web.
Free Martian Whores!
I no longer really use it that much, but when I did use my iPod Touch to get App-store apps, the VAST majority of the apps that I downloaded and used were in fact, free. Not as in speech, but as in beer at least. It seems like for the vast majority of things that I wanted, there were either people willing to donate their time, or who were hoping to recoup their costs via another method (IIRC, Fandango had out a movie show time listing app for free that was subsidized by the ability to buy tickets online to most of those movies).
Look at Android: a very popular cellphone OS that is in fact, Free.
I personally see "Free" taking off even more now. PARTICULARLY on desktop PC's. Smartphones, with their varied landscape, are essentially teaching users to deal with different platforms. If they can get to the web, manage their photos, and perform basic services, then they're fine with that. If the UI is a little different between new phones, then no biggie. Many content providers are doing the same too. They can't code their websites to IE6 and claim "most everybody is using that anyways". These days LOTS of people will be hitting that site with a phone, and hence sites are by necessity going to have to be coded to be more tolerant of various browser rendering engines. Once that user mindset is starts to bleed over into desktops a bit, I think a tolerance for something "a little different looking" will come. When that tolerance gets here, the Linux option on a new PC is going to look very nice if the user can save $25-50 on the total cost.
In short, I think we're just moving from a de-facto single vendor model to a fractured model. Sure, some new pay solution will arise here, but I think the door is wide open for OSS here too.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
If you want to know why the "Information wants to be free" attitude is dying, it is because the Internet has been taken over by business interests; the original network of academics and hackers is just a tiny fraction of what the Internet has now become.
If you want to know why that happened, look at the post-1996 audience for the internet: people who would otherwise be watching television.
They're looking for entertainment and socialization, not "information" in the colloquial sense of knowledge-bearing data.
Futurist Traditionalism
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