"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.
"I can understand the argument that information, in an ideal world, should be free. But I’m also familiar with free information. Free information is usually free for a reason. Mostly, it’s free because it’s a press release, or an ad, or it’s been nicked from TMZ.com, or because it’s so incredibly banal that even its creator can’t bear to look you in the eye and shake you down for cash. Free information, ladies and gentlemen, tends to be crappy information."
— Annabel Crabb, a highlight of Australia’s politico-journalist scene, delivers the A.N. Smith Lecture in Journalism (via New Matilda)
"In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."
— Herbert Simon quoted in Chris Anderson’s book ‘Free’.
