Although Chris Anderson may have ‘mistakenly’ referenced a few Wikipedia paragraphs without any citation, his argument of Free in his new book is still up for heavy debates and viraling across the web. My observation however has led me to a sort of a perplexed state in regard to Bruce Nussbaum of BW’s coverage of the tiff between Godin and Gladwell’s refute of Anderson’s thesis.
Nussbaum says in agreement with Godin:
“I agree. That’s always been at the core of capitalism-unique things or services we crave and pay for become over time commodities and cheap (almost free) and are replaced by new stuff, which we are willing to pay lots for.”
His previous post however in regard to his anecdotal account of boomers loving their Kindle ended with an overly contrary support of Anderson’s exact prediction and argument that “Tech is too cheap to meter…” What I do gather from Anderson’s argument is that digital goods in essence will undoubtedly have a hard time at fetching a price.
Excuse me Gladwell, but a pill is not a digital good. It may be intellectual property, but its far from ones and zeros.
Illustration: Rodrigo Corral