The cost of free

Earlier today, an interesting discussion was started on Twitter around Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul deciding to begin to charge for their events. Naturally, a few people had negative reactions to the news; however, it appears that the majority of people who voiced their opinion agreed with the new $10 charge. Whether or not it’s “right” or in SMBMSP’s best interest to start charging is for you to decide. That being said, it did make me start thinking about the cost of free.

In today’s world where information is readily available at our fingertips at no cost, we’ve become accustomed to receiving content on our terms. Those terms typically mean free. As a society, we expect quality content on our terms. Yet when a price tag is put on that content and we begin to attempt to monetize our ideas and thoughts, suddenly we’ve jumped shark.

Take the newspaper industry for example. The majority of people refuse to pay for an online subscription because A) they’re used to the Web being free and B) it can be accessed for free on other sites.

If Napster were still a free service and it wasn’t illegal to download pirated music, iTunes wouldn’t be around. We’re willing to overlook the body of work if it benefits us. We’re a “me-first” society, unfortunately.

In all reality, there is no such thing as free. There’s always a cost to everything. Likely it’s not a cost to you or me, but someone has invested time, resources and money to create the piece of info you’ve picked up in the bargain bin. Unfortunately, because we live in a society where we’d rather take than give, the majority of the population doesn’t understand why it’s necessary to charge for quality content. It’s the mindset of I don’t want to do the work, I just want to reap the benefits.

Going back to SMBMSP charging for their September event. I find it funny that people will pay $3 for a cup of coffee, yet we get all up in arms over $10 to network and learn. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

So why is it that we’ll readily consume and suck free content from people, yet we get all hussy about paying for said content?