How the Free Model has Taken Over

Radio was the first free media. Now anything from music, video games, online games and books can in some way be obtained free, or at least at first. In Chris Anderson's chapter "The New Media Models" he explains how the Free Model won over radio, and how it has began to win over every other medium.

Why has the end of paid media come to be?
1. With a lot of help from the internet, supply of media has flooded the senses, but demand has not. We can only process so much.
2. Free online media is not tangible. There is a mental difference when we think of stealing something physical, like a CD, as opposed to a digital song.
3. Online makes free media easier to get! Really, the web just makes everything easier.
4. Advertising has allowed many mediums to be free, so we expect a lot of things to be free now. Anderson says a habit on the web can transform into a habit in real life.
5. The computer industry wants content to be free. As Anderson puts it, companies like Apple don't make money off of what is put on an iPod, but rather just selling the physical iPod. The draw to get the device is to put all the free things on it.
6. If you're my age, you're someone that knows that you can find just about anything for free online, and so we expect things to be free. The less we have to spend, the better.

The Free Model allows for the media to advertise itself. Like Caramanica describes in his article, when music is released free it has great potential to become lucrative. In the world of games, the free model has been slowly gaining speed and he believes it will eventually take over. Companies have found many clever ways to make money on games, either purchased or not.

One way is subscribing. If you subscribe to a game, you pay for access until you no longer want to play. Simple as that. Part of subscribing could also be a freemium. A freemium is when you get the first couple of chapters, in the case of books, or levels, in the case of games, free and then it is up to you whether or not to by the rest of the product.
The next, very obvious and in almost any free media now, is advertising. Anderson writes how Obama even paid a game to advertise for him while he was campaigning for presidency.
Another is the sale of merchandise that allows access to games or correlates to that game. He gives the example of Webkinz (stuffed animals that come with codes to access the game), but as someone who frequently watches kids I know how merchandising has helped the success of games like Angry Birds and Club Penguin.

I'm sure a lot of this information could cause a coronary for many music producers and gaming industries, but it's good news to me.