Ego Libre

Going through hundreds of unread RSS feeds, there was one today that struck me. It was Kevin Kelly’s argument about evolution of “free” (via Seth Godin)
It really strikes a resonating note with my way of thinking. Especially when applied to music, Kelly writes:

Patronage — It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. But they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount, and they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators. Radiohead’s recent high-profile experiment in letting fans pay them whatever they wished for a free copy is an excellent illustration of the power of patronage. The elusive, intangible connection that flows between appreciative fans and the artist is worth something. In Radiohead’s case it was about $5 per download. There are many other examples of the audience paying simply because it feels good. [emphasis mine]

I paid also about 5$ for this album. I could have it for free. But I paid because I wanted to. Do the Radiohead guys NEED my money? Of course not. But I simply felt like paying them for their work and also to support this kind of distribution model.

I also needed to choose a price. I thought that album on iTunes is about 10$ so I would pay about half. 5$ is what I feel an optimal price for an album. Songs should go down to 50¢ each so their purchase would be absolutely no brainer.

I used to have tens of GB of illegal music. Now my library is as legal as licensed prostitution in Denmark. But still when I go shopping to iTunes, I put things in my cart and leave them there. Then couple of days later I remove a few until I limit my spending to about 20-30$….well more like 20$. That’s what I feel I can spend in one go. Believe it or now, if music would cost half, I would buy twice as much. If it would be free, I would spend money on music videos, on merchandise and access to subscription only materials. Why?

Because I want to have some kind of connection with my music and with the people who make, however virtual this connection is.
Why not with other media. This is where books wait for the big revolution (and another reason why I think Kindle is incapable of revolutionizing the industry, but let’s leave that for other time). I can’t wait until media will be free. Not free, but with ads, but simply free. The time is almost here and the market is almost ready…