This entry addresses how what appears to be “free” on the internet isn’t necessarily free. I explore the new economies for the Internet and explains how internet users are actually paying for free content.
Internet users pay for the content on the Internet that appears to be free. Either it be in the form of their time and attention, contribution through voluntary labor, monetary donations, or sharing of knowledge and information. But in the form of the Internet being a place to be free to express opinions and information, then the Internet is a forum that allows users to have the freedom to do so. This paper aims to present the argument that the content on the Internet that appears to be free is, in fact, paid for with intangible and tangible gifts from the user. By exploring the mixed economies of the Internet, this paper will attempt to show how the user pays for free content and services with everything that they post, download and/or contribute. This paper will also show how users are free to contribute as much or as little as they wish to, and are free to pay attention to whatever they want.
What does the word free exactly mean, and exactly how free is it? “Many languages have two separate words for “free” as in freedom and “free” as in zero price” (Free Software Foundation FSF, 2009). This paper addresses both definitions.
The Gilette theory of the early 1900s is a marketing theory where the creator of Gilette Razors, King Gilette, gave away his razors for free. He would bundle them up as gift with chewing gum, packets of coffee, tea, spices, and marshmallows. What Gilette was doing was creating a demand for the replacement blades for the razors, which was where he made his profit (Anderson, 2008). This theory has been used for decades to entice consumers to buy, participate or contribute to thousands of things in the offline world. This theory has been transferred online thanks to Web 2.0 tools.
When something is offered for free, people often see value in your work. “The more we give to others as people, the more we’ll earn their trust and gain their respect. Although this does not always mean such ‘giving’ will lead directly to financial reward, the giver will always be positively impacted in diverse ways (Sheridan, n.d).” Veale describes the gift economy as a gifting circle, where the creator allows the content to be shared and accessed for free, the user reciprocates in the form of a intangible reward and with that intangible reward, it leads to the tangible (Veale, 2005). Gifts can come in many forms ranging from reputation building, monetary donations, personal satisfaction, contributions, voluntary labor, and purpose and content gifting (Veale, 2005). “Someone will offer something back, even if it is just their own time and attention to what you made (Wark, 2010).” Leaving a comment on a blog, posting a link to a website of interest on Facebook, contributing to the creation of software or even making adjustments to a Wikipedia entry are all acts of gift giving. The gift economy “doesn’t rely on anyone being a saint. It’s just about using the strange ontological properties of the digital to enable new ways of producing social relations out of human vanity and self-regard (Wark, 2010).”
“Commercial Web 2.0 applications are typically free to users; they generate profit by achieving as many users as possible by offering free services and selling advertisement space to third parties and additional services to users (Fuchs, 2009).” Examples of websites that use the theories of the gift economy are social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Site creators offer these services for free to their users. They collect personal information that the user freely generates every time a status is updated, a check-in is made, or a tweet is created. This information becomes a commodity to the site creators where the information is gathered, and then can generate a profit by selling access to this information to advertisers. Notice how personalized the advertising is on your Facebook profile? This is all derived from information gathered from the information you have shared on the social networking site (Fuchs, 2009). Facebook users, for example, are gifting their information to the site creators, and in turn they can continue to use the sites services for free.
Offering free content and services to users sounds like a great way to get attention and to get ideas, creations, artwork, music, or what ever it is noticed. But how can intellectual property be protected on the Internet? Many content creators use the Creative Commons (CC) licenses to help protect their intellectual property. Their “tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to keep their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work — a “some rights reserved” approach to copyright — which makes their creative, educational, and scientific content instantly more compatible with the full potential of the internet. (Creative Commons, n.d).” “It’s about creating new social relations (Wark, 2010).” There are 6 licenses that users can choose from, ranging from the total freedom of others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon, as long as its creator is credited for the original work, to only allowing others to download original works and share them with others as long as the creator is credited and it can not be changed or used commercially in any way (Creative Commons, n.d). The use of CC is useful for those who are looking for an image, information on a topic, music or footage. It saves time from having to go out and take another photo of the Eiffel Tower, for example. Users can just jump onto Flickr and search the community database for images of that exact landmark (Kelly, 2009). Members of such communities can put hours of work into contributing to these community websites. Using the theories of the gift economy, these creators “gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience (Kelly, 2009).”
In the case of distributing software on the Internet, there are movements such as The Free Software Movement (FSM) and Open Source Software (OSS), which are available for those who wish to release new software for free to the Internet community. FSM is often confused with OSS, though both movements have similar values. FSM means “that it respects the users’ essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer” (Stallman, 2007). OSS follows 10 licensing criteria released under an Open Source Initiative (OSI) certified license. “Perhaps the most important of these are the free redistribution of the software, access to the source code, and the permission to allow modifications to the software and derived works that may be distributed under the same licensing conditions” (OSS Watch, 2005). With differentiating licensing criteria, both FSM and OSS aim to allow the user community to make changes to the source code and redistribute the software, which in turns will make it more powerful and reliable (Stallman, 2007). Both movements see proprietary software as the enemy as they lock up their code, not allowing their users to see it or modify it. FSM and OSS agree with the statement that the Internet is free, but as in freedom, not price. They follow the free economy, where they see that freedom to share, contribute and redistribute are important factors. But they do also follow aspects of the gift economy where they do rely on voluntary labor to improve and contribute to their software, and monetary donations. Well know examples of FSM and OSS are the LINUX operating systems, Joomla! and WordPress.
Though what ever is put up on the Internet for free wont get noticed if it doesn’t take part in the attention economy. The traditional wealth, such as monetary payments, has become less important than the ability to capture attention (Gauntlett, 2004). “Attention, at least the kind we care about, is an intrinsically scarce resource (Goldhaber, 1997).” There is an abundance of information on the Internet and getting a slice of attention is a battle which website and content creators are faced with to get to the top of the most hit list. Therefore, getting attention is a scarce commodity; it is now the new wealth of the Internet. Attention is the new currency. Content creators are in competition with each other to gain the most attention, which in turn can be converted into profit though advertising and sponsorship (Gauntlett, 2004). “The only ‘price’ you pay is being exposed to some modestly-sized but inescapable adverts (Gauntlett, 2004).” On face value it looks like users are offered something for free, but clearly in the attention economy their time and attention is the price they pay to use content and services for free on the Internet.
Another economy to consider in the mixed economies of the Internet with the argument that the Internet isn’t free is the network economy. Kelly argues that there are four key points that govern the new rules for the new economy. Innovation is the new wealth, gained by perfecting the known and seizing the unknown. Nurture the agility and effectiveness of networks when cultivating the unknown. Undo the perfected by abandoning the successful known. And the network economy allows for the cycle of find, nurture and destroy (Kelly, 1997). Creators of content never perfect their product. They leave room for online communities and free labor to complete, modify, or abandon the content they have released. The network economy encourages the free, where spreading the content becomes self-fulfilling. Once the content has worth and is indispensable, selling add-ons and upgrades continue its generosity (Kelly, 1997).
It is evident that the Internet not free as in “zero price”. According to the new mixed economies of gift, free, attention and network economies, the user pays for free content with attention, knowledge, time, and donations. Though it appears on the surface that the information and content is free, personal information and internet habits are monitored by the creators, and then on-sold to third parties, such as advertisers. The content creators can be paid in different forms such as reputation, contributions, and voluntary labor just to name a few. Users may not pay with money, but with their privacy, time and knowledge. It is the new bartering system of the 21st century. The Internet cannot buy your freedom as in what you say and do. It can guide you with free gifts and advertisements, but users are free to choose what, when and where they want to spend their attention, how they want to share their new found knowledge and who they want to collaborate their time with.
REFERENCES
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Creative Commons (n.d). About The Licenses. Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
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Stallman, R. (2007). Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software. Retrieved from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.
Veale, K. (2005). Internet gift economies: voluntary payment schemes as tangible reciprocity. Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1518/1433.
Wark, M (2010). Copyright, Copyleft, Copygift: Reading in an age of change. Retrieved from http://meanland.com.au/articles/post/copyright-copyleft-copygift
