Thursday, July 25, 2002
At the other end of free
Posted by Andy Sjostrom in "THOUGHT" @ 02:43 PM
The last couple of weeks I have been thinking about the fee vs free issue. I know this issue has been discussed and debated over and over again here, but my thoughts does not involve the state Pocket PC Thoughts and whether or not this site's content should be 100% free. I leave that to Jason to ponder on. No, I have three other paths to this post.
First, take a look at the following paragraph that I, very recently, ran across in a writing contract for a publication:
"4. Writer, for authoring said Work, shall receive no monetary compensation."
This particular printed publication is not non-profit. The owners run the publication to make money and run their business, and still won't pay their writers. Being a professional writer myself, I turned down the "offer". I wonder why someone who tries to make a living writing would ever accept such a contract. I wonder if, perhaps, the publication does not want professional writers working for them. Is that then a wise foundation to build a professional publication upon? Strange.
Second, I wonder if we are not living a self-fulfilled prophecy. In the "Mobile Internet" debate (no, I won't start another one now!) it is often argued that it is not possible to charge end users for content / services / products over the Internet, where as a carrier can solve that problem using a cell phone and the phone bill. In these days when almost everyone owns a credit card and gets electronic or paper bills from power companies, insurance companies, banks etc every month, why is it so hard to charge the customer? It is surprising that what we knew how to do "before" the Internet suddenly became unknown to us. The Internet has not short-circuited market economy. If you have what there is a real demand for, then there will be a price point right for what you have. What is missing to get going? (Don't say micro payments!)
Third, where has the "free agent" movement gone? Remember the happy days when there was so much capital available with absolutely no ideas, and so many ideas with absolutetly no capital? People were talking like crazy about "free agents". Be your own. Meet your buyer and seller on the Internet. And all that. I searched around a little bit and found a couple of sites still alive: FreeAgent.com and Elance. Do you know more such, almost historic, sites?
First, take a look at the following paragraph that I, very recently, ran across in a writing contract for a publication:
"4. Writer, for authoring said Work, shall receive no monetary compensation."
This particular printed publication is not non-profit. The owners run the publication to make money and run their business, and still won't pay their writers. Being a professional writer myself, I turned down the "offer". I wonder why someone who tries to make a living writing would ever accept such a contract. I wonder if, perhaps, the publication does not want professional writers working for them. Is that then a wise foundation to build a professional publication upon? Strange.
Second, I wonder if we are not living a self-fulfilled prophecy. In the "Mobile Internet" debate (no, I won't start another one now!) it is often argued that it is not possible to charge end users for content / services / products over the Internet, where as a carrier can solve that problem using a cell phone and the phone bill. In these days when almost everyone owns a credit card and gets electronic or paper bills from power companies, insurance companies, banks etc every month, why is it so hard to charge the customer? It is surprising that what we knew how to do "before" the Internet suddenly became unknown to us. The Internet has not short-circuited market economy. If you have what there is a real demand for, then there will be a price point right for what you have. What is missing to get going? (Don't say micro payments!)
Third, where has the "free agent" movement gone? Remember the happy days when there was so much capital available with absolutely no ideas, and so many ideas with absolutetly no capital? People were talking like crazy about "free agents". Be your own. Meet your buyer and seller on the Internet. And all that. I searched around a little bit and found a couple of sites still alive: FreeAgent.com and Elance. Do you know more such, almost historic, sites?
