"That might seem counterintuitive but I think we’re wrong about this idea of free. There has to be an exchange. All I’ve ever wanted from readers was to be read, but if I printed a thousand books at my own expense and left them lying in cafes that wouldn’t be effective at all. Most readers want to know that someone else was moved enough by the text to invest something of their own."
— Stephen Elliott of The Adderall Diaries fame, in his The Daily Rumpus letter (17 Nov 2010). I think he might be on to something here. The impact of ‘free’ in the Chris Anderson sense is changing, lessening, even, as more and more things do become free.
