I've grown to respect Mike Masnick in the time I've been blogging.  I agree with practically nothing he says but I honestly think he believes it which is more than a lot of people (one of the first things I learned when blogging is that a lot of my fellow bloggers speak largely to generate controversy and get attention). 

Such is the case here where he responds to some complaints outlined by the U.K.'s Shane Richmond...

They are complaining about news being available for free, and claiming that if newspapers had agreed to charge online from the beginning things would be different. But, as Richmond points out, the only real way they'd be different is that no one would get their news from newspapers (online or otherwise) any more. News was going to be free online from the beginning because it's the fundamental nature of information. When it's abundant, it becomes free. That's your basic economics of supply and demand at work. The whole theory that newspapers could charge is based on the false assumption that the only sources for news would be newspapers. If all newspapers charged, it would open up a huge opportunity for other news sources to make the news free online -- and then why would people pay the newspapers?

As is normal in this type of thing I don't fault Mr Masnick his opinion as much as I fault his representing his opinion as if it were the undeniable truth.

First, "anything available in abundance becomes free" is not "basic supply and demand".  At least, it doesn't appear in any Economics book I've ever seen.

Second, the theory that newspapers couldn't charge because they aren't the only source of news misses one important point which is that there are different levels of quality in reporting.  I consider the Wall Street Journal a better read than any news blog I can think of and pay to have access because of that.  So do a lot of other people.

The idea that Newspapers can't make money off subscription fees ignores the fact that several newspapers are.  The real question is "what differentiates newspapers that people pay for from the ones they won't" and the answer, to my eyes, is quality of reporting.  Newspapers that have reporters the public wants to hear from can get money for their content. 

Also, on a barely related note, people tend to use the same "information wants to be free" concept to argue the inevitability of all music being free.  But last I checked iTunes was making money by increasingly large boatloads each quarter. 

So now the real questions: What does it matter?

What's done is done, newspapers can't go back in time, so why even bother bringing this up much less arguing about it?  Because the people in Mr. Richmond's article were right.  Newspapers are stuck being free now not because it was inevitable but because they didn't charge to begin with and you can't dial that decision back. 

People assign a value to things based on their first encounter with them.  If you tell people your product is free that's the value they'll assign to it and that's what it will be worth in their mind.  Once they've assigned that value it's almost impossible to change their mind (ask all those Web 1.0 companies)