Information wants to be free

I agree with Malcolm Gladwell that information doesn’t want to be anything. It just is. We want it to be things: free, interesting, exclusive, real-time, nostalgic, informative, historical, interpretable, entertaining, useful etc. 

I also agree with Seth Godin that:

“People will pay for content if it is so unique they can't get it anywhere else, so fast they benefit from getting it before anyone else, or so related to their tribe that paying for it brings them closer to other people. We'll always be willing to pay for souvenirs of news, as well, things to go on a shelf or badges of honor to share.”

At the heart of the matter is the panic traditional media outlets are having over their content becoming available in ways they do not control, much the way the audio-visual industry has been dealing with since the introduction of recording technologies from way back when (Sousa’s argument used by Lawrence Lessig in Remix is an early example of this panic in action).

I think that the creators (and sellers) of information are foolish to try and stop the availability of their information for free. The future lies in their ability to adapt their business models to package their information in ways people are willing to pay for. 

For Godin, this means packaging his related information people can get for free in one easy place, i.e. a book, that will save people time who are interested in his ideas. For me, I believe the future lies in time saving. The power of the Internet is the sheer volume of information available, but that is also its weakness. 

Take twitter for example. At the moment, it is fantastic for me as I get real time updates ‘from the horse’s mouth’ on issues I am interested in. Whether it be the triple J hottest 100 countdown that I’m currently missing out on* (sob), or the launch of the Global Poverty Project’s presentation happening around Australia right now, and screening at the University of Technology, Sydney tonight (meaning someone at UTS will at least be aware of the general area I want my thesis to take, which is very, very useful info for me come Feb next year); or the fact that there is a short story comp closing in 48hrs I can enter – the usefulness is that I have not had to spend hours visiting each web page to find this out.

It’s like a ‘life feed’ that is delivered to me when I want it, unlike annoying individual newsletters in my e mail. But, I suspect that twitter is going to reach a saturation point where ‘the intelligentsia**’ will find it a less powerful tool than it is right now because too many ‘regular punters’ will be able to contact them directly, and this will become unmanageable. This, I think, will breed a twitter v.2, which will be some other platform for ‘the intelligentsia’ to share their ideas in real time. 

A new model for the outlets which sell content then, could be something which packages relevant information that is person specific in a way which they are willing to pay for. This is the ‘extreme’ of the long tail idea – but I’d love a service which sent me a daily/monthly/weekly (whichever option I chose) summary of ‘things I might be interested in’ in the one place i.e. concerts, books, articles, songs, albums, etc etc etc., which still lets me access the real time ideas of the intelligentsia long after they get sick of every Tom Dick and Jane being able to contact them directly on a secondly, minutely, hourly basis.

So I see one possible future of ‘unfree’ as outsourcing the sorting of the wheat from the chaff. If The New Yorker could sell content in targeted ways to interested parties over the globe through a small ‘pay per view’ idea (am using this term as a way to describe the phenomenon of paying for content I want in the way that I want, not necessarily PPV the way it exists today) it could potentially make significantly more money than it does now by relying on relatively small subscriber numbers. 

Scale this idea up and they could employ tribe specific writers to just come up with their specific content, which is sold only to the people interested in it, and suddenly the notion of their business model growing can get Malcolm rubbing his hands together. Imagine all the tribes they can cater for? And the cross selling? Sure, the content may no longer be delivered on glossy pages that get splattered by my stir fry sauce, but I may still pay for the content to be delivered if it is relevant enough for me, and I have not had to expend a huge amount of effort to get it.

Another example – music. Sure, I can download new albums without paying for them, if I was ethically inclined to do so. But even if I was, there is a convenience factor that is missing. I want my albums with the tracks in order, with all their details i.e. date released, artist, album name etc every time. While it’s possible to download all of this information for free, it’s hit and miss as to whether I’ll be able to download it ‘ready for use’ without some sort of fiddling required from my end. If I buy the album from iTunes though, I get it, with all this information included, and I can be assured the quality will be perfect. Not to mention the fact that the artists get paid at the end of the day this way. The positives of paying for the content which comes ready in the way I want to consume it far outweighs the temptation of ‘free’ for me. 

A bit of a ramble, but I hope it sheds at least some light on how I feel about the notion of free information and the challenges being presented to the traditional media business models. Absolutely it is scary stuff for those who have the responsibility of moving their businesses in the right direction so they can harness new information delivery techniques that will lead to business growth, but the point is there are opportunities that can be harnessed. It’s just a matter of thinking outside the square enough to make it happen (or hiring someone else capable of thinking outside the box for you).

*I wrote this piece back in January, but re reading it thought it was still relevant, so decided to post it.

**Intelligentsia here means the people at the cutting edge of their fields who are generating new ideas versus the people who follow those at the cutting edge.