What is information actually worth, Mr. Meyer?
Journalistic work always costs money. The only question is whether the end result can actually be sold. Op-ed by Oliver Reichenstein, information architect in Tokyo.
Editorial logic: Good articles don't write themselves. Someone has to do it. You have to invest time, knowledge and nerves. Articles cost money. And yet suddenly everything is available for free on the Internet. What a mess! If someone works, i.e. invests time, knowledge and nerves, then you have to pay them, right? The answer is: journalists are allowed to demand money for their work, just not from the reader.
If someone builds snowmen in the Arctic, he should not expect the Eskimo to put a tuna at his feet in return. While the production of information always costs money, the result of journalistic work is not always a product for which the reader can be charged money, especially not on the Internet, where journalistic work is distributed without the illusion of a physical product.
Information categories
Some texts naturally contain information that can be measured in money (price comparisons, financial information, advertisements). Such texts are relatively easy to sell because their monetary value is obvious. If I buy and read a hundred-franc text that will make me 10,000 francs richer, I will buy it without batting an eyelid.
Artistic texts (novels, poems, short stories), on the other hand, have their purpose in themselves. Art doesn't have to do anything, it can do anything. At best, it serves educational purposes, i.e. it contains a value that cannot be bought or sold for a commodity value.
Practical texts (instructions, programming manuals, educational texts, the news of the day) have utility value; they save us time, make us more skillful, inform us. But in the case of Advertising Week, you can see how high the market value of practical information is. Not gigantically high. Advertising is needed as a catalyst.
In contrast to practical texts, it seems downright infamous - depending on your point of view - to demand money for scientific texts. Knowledge is a general right, not a personal good. Knowing whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa should not carry a price tag. In an age of free access to information, horrendously expensive elite universities and private schools based on the American model are nothing more than a grotesque idea.
And who pays?
Of course, the question now arises: who pays for all this - the teachers, the artists, the journalists, the libraries, the radio, the television - if most of it is supposed to be free?
Well, the same people who used to pay for teachers, artists, journalists, libraries, radio and television. It works exactly the same on the Internet as everywhere else: education is financed by the state, art by people who mean well, practical information can be sold at a low price, provided it is really good, coupled with advertising.
The only information for which you can charge money directly is information with monetary value; information that saves money or makes money. And that is why the Wall Street Journal, but not the Tages-Anzeiger, can charge money for digital data.
But, but, but ...
What about records, movies, crime novels, funny tabloid news? What about entertainment? The new, the funny, the scandalous, the bad, the casual, the ingenious, the unbelievable has a high value, doesn't it? Not so fast, Mr. Meyer!
Entertainment is the quality of information to generate attention. Entertainment has no monetary value, but an attention value that can be monetized with advertising. This is also a well-known model.
That should be obvious to an old hand like Frank A. Meyer, who prints free newspapers. Of course, it's easier to demonize progress than to keep up with it.
The reason why we are no longer prepared to spend money on information is not because we are stupid or evil. We know that information no longer needs paper, music no longer needs a CD, novels no longer need a book cover, a movie no longer needs a theater. We want information at the best price, without having to pay unnecessarily for printing and distribution, CD covers, video cassettes. We also don't want to buy a whole newspaper if FC Basel is all we're interested in in the BaZ. This is neither stupid nor evil, nor anti-capitalist, nor uncivil - but simply economic.
The reason is that we were brought up that way. It's not the Internet that has taught us the indecency of asking for free wit, but school, the library, radio and television. It can't be cheaper to make television than to maintain a website. Or is it, Mr. Meyer?
If someone builds snowmen in the Arctic, he should not expect the Eskimo to put a tuna at his feet in return. While the production of information always costs money, the result of journalistic work is not always a product for which the reader can be charged money, especially not on the Internet, where journalistic work is distributed without the illusion of a physical product.
Information categories
Some texts naturally contain information that can be measured in money (price comparisons, financial information, advertisements). Such texts are relatively easy to sell because their monetary value is obvious. If I buy and read a hundred-franc text that will make me 10,000 francs richer, I will buy it without batting an eyelid.
Artistic texts (novels, poems, short stories), on the other hand, have their purpose in themselves. Art doesn't have to do anything, it can do anything. At best, it serves educational purposes, i.e. it contains a value that cannot be bought or sold for a commodity value.
Practical texts (instructions, programming manuals, educational texts, the news of the day) have utility value; they save us time, make us more skillful, inform us. But in the case of Advertising Week, you can see how high the market value of practical information is. Not gigantically high. Advertising is needed as a catalyst.
In contrast to practical texts, it seems downright infamous - depending on your point of view - to demand money for scientific texts. Knowledge is a general right, not a personal good. Knowing whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa should not carry a price tag. In an age of free access to information, horrendously expensive elite universities and private schools based on the American model are nothing more than a grotesque idea.
And who pays?
Of course, the question now arises: who pays for all this - the teachers, the artists, the journalists, the libraries, the radio, the television - if most of it is supposed to be free?
Well, the same people who used to pay for teachers, artists, journalists, libraries, radio and television. It works exactly the same on the Internet as everywhere else: education is financed by the state, art by people who mean well, practical information can be sold at a low price, provided it is really good, coupled with advertising.
The only information for which you can charge money directly is information with monetary value; information that saves money or makes money. And that is why the Wall Street Journal, but not the Tages-Anzeiger, can charge money for digital data.
But, but, but ...
What about records, movies, crime novels, funny tabloid news? What about entertainment? The new, the funny, the scandalous, the bad, the casual, the ingenious, the unbelievable has a high value, doesn't it? Not so fast, Mr. Meyer!
Entertainment is the quality of information to generate attention. Entertainment has no monetary value, but an attention value that can be monetized with advertising. This is also a well-known model.
That should be obvious to an old hand like Frank A. Meyer, who prints free newspapers. Of course, it's easier to demonize progress than to keep up with it.
The reason why we are no longer prepared to spend money on information is not because we are stupid or evil. We know that information no longer needs paper, music no longer needs a CD, novels no longer need a book cover, a movie no longer needs a theater. We want information at the best price, without having to pay unnecessarily for printing and distribution, CD covers, video cassettes. We also don't want to buy a whole newspaper if FC Basel is all we're interested in in the BaZ. This is neither stupid nor evil, nor anti-capitalist, nor uncivil - but simply economic.
The reason is that we were brought up that way. It's not the Internet that has taught us the indecency of asking for free wit, but school, the library, radio and television. It can't be cheaper to make television than to maintain a website. Or is it, Mr. Meyer?
