The statement that
“Information wants to be free,” is attributed to Whole Earth Catalog founder
Stewart Brand. Unfortunately, many consumers and even some digital activists
today seem to forget that Brand’s very next utterance was “Information also
wants to be expensive,” a truth known all too well by publishers,
IT staff, and college stores and other content retailers.
As this post on The Scholarly Kitchen blog
notes in great detail, the storage and delivery of digital content has costs.
Maintenance of current digital warehousing and development of future methods
both involve highly skilled professionals and complex equipment. Also—cat
videos on YouTube notwithstanding—most content creators need or at least hope
to be paid for their efforts. Even producing and disseminating those cat videos
requires time, equipment, energy, and bandwidth. Add in backup and security.
“If there’s no place to put it, and nobody to
manage it, does it exist?” asks blogger Kent Anderson. “Quick, find me all your
five-year-old e-mails.”
The real price tag for digital goods may
serve as a tempering response to those who demand free e-textbooks based on the
notion that removing printing, binding, and shipping eliminates all the
principal costs of creating course content.
