Tag: sociology

The Problem with Free

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMpwJn_4NtE]

 

Damn, I must read Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price. Based on the WNYC video (below) and Q&A—”The Gift Economist”—in the July 19, 2009 the New York Times Magazine, I must disagree with Chris’ concept of free as applied to digital products. Free and the Internet go oddly together, and not necessarily well together.

Chris may be right, but for other reasons than he presents here. In the video above, Chris asserts that on the Internet “free really can be free.” Nobody has to pay. He presents his view, which does allow for combo free and paid models, by way of marketing and economic history and theory.

Read More

Do You Like Pie?

The best definition I have seen for describing U.S. conservatives and liberals came from a sociology book, which used analogy of a pie and who gets it.

The liberal philosophy is equal share, that everyone should get the same slice of the pie. By contrast, the conservative philosophy is equal access, that everyone should get equal chance at the pie but not necessarily equal piece.