Online, some things are freer than others
The 1920s hit song The Best Things in Life are Free revolved around the fact that the moon, the stars and "sunbeams that shine" are yours and mine. They don't cost anything, yet give pleasure to everyone. This example of heavenly altruism entered the internet world last week when Google extended its wonderful Google Earth service towards the rest of the universe. Using Google Sky, we can now probe the moon, stars and planets like Mars at no cost (apart from broadband charges).
The availability of such free services is one of the wonders of the web. But as in real life, it turns out that in an internet economy some things are freer than others. Google Sky brings virtual space exploration to a much wider audience. But as Simon Bisson points out, astronomical applications have been a profitable niche for a large number of companies, and sophisticated sky explorers (remember Redshift?) have been developed over a number of years and "now, overnight, that market has been blown away". In a way this is simply the "creative destruction" that ensures the long-term efficiency of capitalism, in which better products or companies destroy old ones. The difference is that increasingly on the internet a lot of these products are given away to the user and paid for by the advertising revenues often generated elsewhere, thereby stifling competition. As one blogger has pointed out, this is a bit like a rentier economy in which a country rich in oil or raw materials can afford very low domestic taxes because of the taxes it gets from exporting the oil.
Google is still a great company, but attitudes towards it are changing. Only a few years ago people could muse that in a fair world they really ought to be paying search engines for the economic value they generated, if only because life without them would be almost unthinkable. But now that Google, unexpectedly, is making billions of dollars from placing discreet adverts near content it merely indexes, the content providers, such as newspapers, want a share of the honeypot. Google is reported to be paying selected users on its YouTube subsidiary a share of the revenues; it may not be long before other Google content providers stake a similar claim.
The true DNA of the internet is the free exchange of knowledge between people, universities and institutions where nothing is demanded in return. This includes the free software and open source movements as well as the Wikipedia - which, for all the recent criticism, remains most internet users' first port of call for information. It is free (apart from voluntary donations) with no subliminal advertisements. As long as enough people give freely to the web everyone gains from the exchange and no one suffers - except, that is, the statistics for Gross National Product, because if such exchanges were charged for they would become part of reported economic wealth. Some offerings look free but don't bear examination. Barter deals can often be a disguised way of tax avoidance including some peer-to-peer exchanges (of films and songs), though the economic impact of it on the industries affected is often grossly exaggerated. Skype is a free service between users, many of whom don't realise that one of the reasons it can be done for nothing is that their own computers form Skype's network so it doesn't need to shell out for its own infrastructure.In 1970 Richard Titmuss wrote an influential book, The Gift Relationship, examining the greater effectiveness of Britain's culture of giving blood for free compared with charging for it in the US, which is credited with leading to reforms in the US system. If he were alive today, Titmuss would be delighted that his theories of the importance of altruism in promoting economic welfare are endorsed by the gift relationships online. Long may it continue, but we must be vigilante about seemingly unimportant erosions.
小三
mafioso(湖南 长沙)：老头挺酷～
嘿嘿～偶也这么觉得滴～
删除 回复 2007-09-25 15:58
小三
阿迪(黑龙江 哈尔滨)：怎么没翻译过来啊,看的头大,溜走...
删除 回复 2007-09-25 15:57
mafioso
湖南 长沙
老头挺酷～
删除 回复 2007-09-18 14:24
阿迪
黑龙江 哈尔滨
怎么没翻译过来啊,看的头大,溜走...
删除 回复 2007-09-10 13:13
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