Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Is Chris Anderson Right or Wrong? Or Free or Not Free, that is the question

There's a lot of debate about Chris Anderson's new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.”

Malcolm Gladwell reviewed the book negatively in the New Yorker, in a review entitled, "Priced to Sell: Is free the future?"

Seth Godin responded by writing, "Malcolm is wrong."

Then Bruce Nussbaum at BusinessWeek looked at the debate in "Seth Godin Vs. Malcolm Gladwell on Chris Anderson's Book, Free," and declared the winner to be...

Gladwell.

Then more people weighed in on the debate. You can check out the debate here.

What do I think?

I think there's a lot to be said on both sides of the debate.

But here's my question: If Anderson believes in free so much, how come: he's charging $26.99 via Amazon -- full price, too! How come his magazine, Wired, charges a subscription fee?

Suddenly free isn't so appealing, I guess.

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