Food for Thought…

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I’m reading Chris Anderson’s “FREE” and came across a thought I’d like to share.  He quotes Clay Shirky, a writer and NYU lecturer, who believes it’s much smarter for content creators to give their good away for free:

“For a creator more interested in attention than income, free makes sense.  In a regime where most of the participants are charging, freeing your content gives you a competitive advantage.  And, as the drunks say, you can’t fall off the floor.  Anyone offering content free gains an advantage that can’t be beaten, only matched, because the competitive answer to free – “I’ll pay you to read my weblog!” – is unsupportable over the long haul.

Free content is thus what biologists call an evolutionarily stable strategy that works well when no one else is using it – it’s good to be the only person offering free content.  It’s also a strategy that continues to work if everyone is using it, because in such an environment, anyone who begins charging for their work will be at a disadvantage.  In a world of free content, even the moderate hassle of micropayments greatly damages user preference, and increases their willingness to accept free material as a substitute.”

I find myself in this conversation more and more often.  “Should we give our music away for free?” – maybe not all of it, but certainly some of it.  Would you buy a song you’ve never heard from a band you don’t know?  Is your entire career dependent on the $.99 you’ll make off that download?  You need attention.  Make it available in all formats for purchase, but give your best track away for free to anyone interested in listening.  Even if I have access to free content from artists I like, I always buy to support…fans do that.  But I’m not a fan until I hear the goods! – Thoughts?