Like hell it does ….

It feels like 1980 again. Back in the “good ol’ days” software was free. Or almost free, anyway. As a card-carrying computer programmer, my employer would buy a copy of the DOS operating system (and later Windows) and I’d happily install it on any computer that needed it. Microsoft used the free and easy lack of copy-protection on their software as one of their best weapons in driving competitors like Lotus (spreadsheets) and dBase (databases) out of business. At the time, I tried really hard to justify the concept that it was OK to install one legitimate copy of Windows on a dozen or so PC’s. Ah, the stupidity of youth.

Microsoft talked out of both sides of their mouth back then. On one side, they fully supported the right of software publishers to sell each and every copy of their product. On the other side, they refused to participate in any effective way of doing it. Until they clawed their way to the top. Now, not a leaf falls in software land that does not deliver profit to the Microsoft bottom line.

The noble phrase I’ve used as a title is credited to computer pioneer and visionary Stewart Brand at the first Hackers’ Conference in 1984.

“On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”

Now, the former managing editor of Time magazine, Walter Isaacson, has written a great article for his former employer, “How to Save Your Newspaper” pointing out the obvious: free Internet content is driving newspapers bankrupt. I read it. Online. For free.

It’s interesting to observe the controversy this is generating out in the blogosphere. But I’ve seen it all before. Most of it is based on pseudo-technical and pseudo-economic reasoning. It’s too hard. People won’t pay.

It’s not too hard and people will pay. I paid by the minute for access to CompuServe for years. The most compelling argument in Isaacson’s whole article is, “Steve Jobs got music consumers (of all people) comfortable with the concept of paying 99 cents for a tune instead of Napsterizing an entire industry.” They won’t pay until they have to. Then they will.

Before creating my (free and downloadable) ColorComments.com wallpaper, I used to use a very simple wallpaper file. It contained a quote from one of England’s greatest writers, Samuel Johnson.

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”