Value
What is value and how do you measure it in a world that is all about the free? Or at least getting the free? Free everything on the Internet. I have a friend that has over 500 albums downloaded from the Internet. That she’s never listened to. So while she has something it has no value so therefore no interest.
I have another friend who is now only buying music now. He had a huge library of downloaded free/stolen/liberated music but didn’t invest the time to listen, really listen, to his music. Therefore the it had no meaning.
Now he’s only getting music from iTunes. It’s not having the physical that’s important to him. It’s the fact that he is investing in his own enjoyment by paying for something he cares about. That’s where he’s finding the value.
Steelso :: May.16.2008 :: Happy, Idiot, Music :: 8 Comments »
I dunno…depends on the meaning of “free”. Free as in Free Beer? Or Free Speech? I like both. The Charlatans gave away their latest album, which I downloaded and like. I listen to Beecake almost every day on Myspace, and I love them, every new tune just a bit better. I have This Is Happening seriously stuck in my head which is about as free a music as there is. So I guess free does not = worthless to me, if it’s something dear to my heart.
Free as in stolen/taken/liberated?
That’s a whole other argument.
ps
Shat has a new book out: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=4836870
Shat is awesome and makes incredibly good sense to a politically moderate person like me.
I would say that the Beecake scenario isn’t free. They are letting you listen to it for free for you don’t actually own it. I don’t think free makes for a long term relationship in the same way that you describe your Charlatan example. I’m just not big on free at the moment.
Good point! Yes, the listening is free, but I’m dying for a full CD to come out. They really are quite talented, and each song seems to be better than the last. Lyrics, too, me being a textual type person.
Then there’s the argument that nothing is ever truly free.
Nonsense. I have 10 gazillion tunes and I am going to listen to everyone. However I wont be leaving the house for 4 years 252 days. Apparently.
Meanwhile…
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/apple-to-fool-public-for-207th-time-200806091008/
hahahaha
It costs me nothing to read your blog, save a few minutes of my time (which in this life seems, at times, to be all I have), but I find a great deal of value in it.
I guess if it is the thrill of seeking or finding what is free, only for the enjoyment that it brings until it is had and then done with, then the value of free is ethereal at best. Maybe it isn’t that it has no value, but rather that value can sometimes be too hard to hold on to. Humans are naturally hedonistic and addicted to consuming anything and everything that brings them pleasure.
Here’s an analogy I know you can relate to. How much value does a pint hold once you’ve pissed it out? The value comes from the bliss you feel after the last drink of it. Later on, there’s the great relief from a good piss. You’ve gotten some kind of value from it twice, even though it’s now gone to you forever.
Some of the dearest things to me have been free. My friends, like my goodfellow Pipkin, has given my a higher return than I feel like I’ve given. Her friendship costs me nothing but a little of my own, and I have been repaid tenfold by her kindness.
If you aren’t big on free at the moment, maybe it’s because you’ve been looking at it from the wrong direction. Try giving something for free, and I’m sure you’ll find a lot more value in it.
Elrawien, I think you’re missing my point. I’m not saying that all of ‘free’ is bad. The point is to get something that does have a value that you get for free loses its value. My blog is free, I’m not asking for a fee and so I’m glad it has a value for you.
I don’t quite get the piss thing at all I’m afraid. It’s not free, I paid for it.
And friendship is never free as you state. Again you feel that you’ve got a good return on it. Wonderful. But you still had to enter some amount of care, friendship, whatever you’d like to call it. It certainly wasn’t free, nor should it be. Otherwise where’s the value?
I didn’t miss your point. Maybe I just didn’t make mine clearly enough.
My point is that free things with value are more often given than received, and that, free or not, the value of something may not last for long.
Like you, I have never experienced a free pint…but I do feel that friendship is free.
Thanks, El, you’re the best. Our friendship is pretty solid at this point I think. But friendship, like love, is (at least for me) without any value we as human beings can truly grasp unless we delve deeply into the spiritual. I’m familiar with those waters, and with the wonders and the monsters that dwell there. Both can wear the same face I see in the mirror…
I think what Big Daddy is talking about is more in the “nothing is free and nothing is cool” school of thought. If everything is free, then nothing has value. If everything is cool, then nothing is cool. It’s a whole other six pack of possums, and I do get it. I just love best in life what doesn’t cost me a thing. I’ve never been materialistic. It’s just not in me. I would rather invest in things money cannot and should not be able to buy. (But that does mean it *is* still an investment!)
For the most part those things are priceless. So yeah, I do get both sides of the argument.
To put a humorous twist on all this, when my son heard from his uncle’s own lips he was using a tanning bed (we all live in *the sun belt* for heaven’s sake!) he said, “Are you gay?”