“Free” Evolving From Marketing Hype to “Duh”?
Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson’s new book Free sounds like a marketing ploy to the ears of my age group. I’ve read several reviews, including Malcolm Gladwell’s in The New Yorker.
Obviously the concept that “information wants to be free” is deeply worrisome to the old media. I, too, believe the worker is worthy of his hire (Matthew 10:10)—even information workers and creative types!
Not that Anderson would disagree. According to Time’s review, he is really showing how to profit from “a multibillion-dollar business model tailor-made for the Internet economy.”
But while I generally see the word “free” as marketing hype, Anderson says he received quite different criticism from a younger crowd. On page 5 of Free he says:
“At risk of ageist generalization, there were broadly two camps of skeptics: those over thirty and those below. The older critics, who had grown up with twentieth-century Free, were rightly suspicious: Surely ‘free’ is nothing of the sort—we all pay sooner or later. Not only is it not new, but it’s the oldest marketing gimmick in the book. When you hear ‘free,’ reach for your wallet.
“The younger critics had a different response: ‘Duh!’ This is the Google Generation, and they’ve grown up online simply assuming that everything digital is free. They have internalized the subtle market dynamics of near-zero marginal cost economics in the same way that we internalize Newtonian mechanics when we learn to catch a ball. The fact that we are now creating a global economy around the price of zero seemed too self-evident to even note…
“Any topic that can divide critics equally into two opposite camps—‘totally wrong’ and ‘so obvious’—has got to be a good one.”
Though it was just published last week, you can see Free on the Web, but so far I’ve only had time to spend a few minutes with it. After all, “free time” is hard to come by!
Has anybody read Free? Is it worth the time?
Any thoughts on preaching the gospel for free in the digital age? Does a Church that actually practices “freely give” (Matthew 10:8) lose an attention getter? Or is does the expectation of free remove some of the skepticism?
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By the way, as I wrote this, I was eating some delicious green beans from our garden. Though I didn’t have to buy them at the store, I know they are far from free. We bought the bean seeds, the fence to keep the rabbits out, the topsoil, the water, etc. And then there’s the time invested! I don’t even want to think of what these beans cost! But to me they are worth it. (Just wish the rest of the family were here to enjoy them too!)
Other thoughts on the subject of free?
ucgmikebennett
July 12, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Funny…I haven’t read it. The difference may be that one generation is more ruled by the concept of duty in that it is wrong to get something for nothing. The other generation is more use to getting what they want without too much sacrifice.
zdenny
July 12, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Some comments from my Facebook page:
Bill Pentecost at 2:31pm July 12
With free from cost can come free from control – maybe that also worries the old guard.
Sherrie Giddens at 3:37pm July 12
There is no choice but to offer the word of God for free, it is His to give away not ours. That makes it His problem, and as always He will call those that he wants to call through the way that fits His needs. We just need to keep making it available and walking through the doors that He opens. Those doors will change as tech changes, but that is more of a blessing than a problem. As human beings we can not predict what He has in store for His word, but we can be willing and ready to make it available to the people of the world, For Free! When he is opening a mind it is ready to recieve the word regardless of marketing hype, there is nothing we can do to market it to a mind that is not open and ready to recieve, free or not.
Brian White at 5:13pm July 12
This is not a straight forward one. There are those that are more skeptical to the notion of “free”. “Free” to the more cautious, comes with the expectation, that you will be required to pay something later,as I believe was mentioned in your blog post.
But then for others, where the gospel is concerned- the goodnews being offered for free is a welcomed change, because they may have only seen religious organizations as businesses, and their representatives as being in it for monetary gain, and not because of any sincere desire to share the good news.
Mike Bennett at 7:56pm July 12
Lots of good points. I am going to try to be more aware of using the word “free” since I’m not sure it is that helpful these days for either group, and especially in the online world where of course we are giving this vital information for free! Thanks!
Mike Bennett
July 13, 2009 at 12:07 am