Archive for June 30th, 2009
In Defense of Writers
June 30, 2009
In the New Yorker this week, there is a review of Chris Anderson’s new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price”. Anderson who is known for saying “information wants to be free” continues that theme in seeing all content, music, writing, etc. will be driven by economic forces to be free. He is reinforcing the death of newspapers and their need to find a new business model even if there is none to be had. His argument that the reduction in the cost of transistors and other technology allow for a great business opportunity to offer things for free.
While much of the Internet is free, especially content served up from newspapers to health care organizations, his proposal implying that all content should be free, devalues writers, whether medical writers, news reporters and editors and others. Granted the nature of intellectual property has changed in the Web 2.0 world but not so much as to obliterate the value of good writing and ideas. There is room today and in the future for this IP to be valued and paid for. While micropayments never took off on the web, let’s hope that some newspapers survive and find additional business models to stay alive.
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